When the devil had completed every temptation, he departed from him until another time.
Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, and news about him spread through all the surrounding area. He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.
He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. He entered, as was his custom, into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.
The book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. He opened the book, and found the place where it was written,
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to deliver those who are crushed,
and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began to tell them, “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
All testified about him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth, and they said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”
He said to them, “Doubtless you will tell me this parable, ‘Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we have heard done at Capernaum, do also here in your hometown.’ ” He said, “Most certainly I tell you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv16, 17, 22 Who Christ is, and wherefore he came, he showeth…
Who Christ is, and wherefore he came, he showeth out of the prophet Isaiah.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv13–24 13 And when the devil had ended all the…
13 And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.
Ver. 13. He departed from him for a season] We must look for the other bout, and in a calm prepare for a storm. The tempter is restless and impudent; so that a man is to expect, if he live out his days, to be urged to all sins, to the breach of every branch of the ten commandments, and to be put to it in respect of every article of the Creed.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 22, 23 Matthew saith, the devil left him, and, behold, angels…
Matthew saith, the devil left him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto Him. Luke saith, he departed from him for a season, when he had ended all the temptation. Those words, for a season, seem to intimate that our Saviour had further conflicts with the devil than are here mentioned; and possibly those words, all the temptation, may hint us, that the devil offered more temptations than the evangelist have recorded, though some affirm that all temptations fall under those which are the heads of these temptations, and think those words,
for a season, signify until the time of his passion, when he entered into the heart of Judas, and armed all his instruments against this Captain of our salvation.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv14, 22 Our blessed Saviour being thus fitted and prepared by…
Our blessed Saviour being thus fitted and prepared by his baptism and temptation for the execution of his ministerial office, he now enters upon the great work of preaching the gospel, and St. Luke here declares the first place he preached at, namely, Nazareth; and the first text he preached upon, Isa 61:1
Observe 1. The place where our Saviour preached at; he bestowed his first sermon upon Nazareth, the place of his conception and education. For though Christ was born at Bethlehem, yet he was bred and brought up at Nazareth; there he had his poor, but painful education, working on his father’s trade, that of a carpenter. This prejudiced the Jews against him, who looked for a sceptre, not an axe, in the hand of him that was born King of the Jews. Our Saviour’s short and secret abode at Bethlehem, and his long and public living at Nazareth, occasioned him to be called Jesus of Nazareth; yet some conceived it was a nick-name, fastened by the devil upon our Saviour, that he might disguise the place of Christ’s nativity, and leave the Jews at a greater loss concerning their Messiah. Sure it is, that this name, Jesus of Nazareth, stuck upon our Saviour all his life; and at his death was fixed by Pilate on his cross. Yea, after his ascension, such as believed on were called, The sect of the Nazarenes, or the followers of Jesus of Nazareth.
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Observe, 2. The text which our Saviour preached upon at Nazareth: he takes it out of the prophet Esaias, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. Luk 4:18 That is, God the Father hath poured forth his Holy Spirit without measure upon me, in all the gifts and graces of it, to fit and furnish me for the work of a mediator; and particularly, to preach the gospel to the poor in spirit, and to such as are poor in outward condition also, if meekened and humbled with the sight and sense of their sins. To bind up the broken-hearted; that is, to comfort them with the glad tidings of the gospel. To preach deliverance to the captives: to let such sinners know, who were slaves to sin and Satan, that a Deliverer is come, if they be willing to be delivered by him. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord: or to proclaim a spiritual jubilee in which God proffers pardon of sin and reconciliation with himself upon the terms of the gospel.
Learn hence, 1. That God stirreth up none to take upon them the office of the ministry, whom he hath not fitted and furnished with gifts for the regular discharge of it.
2. That Christ himself did not undertake the office of a mediator, but by the ordination of God the Holy Spirit: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and he hath sent me to preach the gospel.
3. That no creature, angel or man, could perform the office of a mediator, but only Christ, who was consecrated to that office by an anointing from the Holy Spirit without measure: The Spirit of the Lord hath anointed me.
4. That the preaching of the gospel is the great ordinance which Christ himself made use of, and recommended to his apostles and ministers, for enlightening blind sinners, for comforting broken hearts, and for delivering captive souls from the slavery and dominion of sin and Satan: He hath sent me to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to publish deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind. What enemies than are they to the souls of men who have low and mean thoughts of this high and honourable ordinance of God, the preaching of the everlasting gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation?
Observe, 3. The behavior of our Saviour’s auditors, the men of Nazareth, under his preaching: their eyes were fixed, and their minds intent, upon him, and upon what was spoken by him: The eyes of all that were in the synagogue were fastened upon him: not closed with sleep, nor gazing about upon others; but fixed upon Christ the preacher.
Fixing of the eye is a great help to the attention of the ear, and the intention of the mind; a fastened eye is a mean to help us to a fixed heart; as a wandering eye is both a sign and cause of a wandering heart. O that our hearers would imitate our Saviour’s hearers under the word! They fastened their eyes upon him, as if they meant to hear with their eyes as well as with their ears: and yet we have cause to expect tht curiosity rather than piety caused this their attention; seeing, as you will find, Luk 4:29 that these very persons, who out of novelty were ready to eat his words, soon after out of cruelty were ready to devour the speaker: For they thrust him out of the city, led him to the brow of the hill, and would have cast him down headlong.
O blessed Saviour, what wonder is it that the persons of thy ministers are despised, and their doctrine neglected, when thou thyself, the first preacher of the gospel, and for thy first sermon at Nazareth, wert thus ignominiously treated!
Observe, lastly, how Christ conforms to the ceremonies of the Jewish doctrine, who, in honor of the law and the prophets, stood up when they read them, and according to custom, sat down when they explained them. And although the synagogual worship was then loaden with rules and ceremonies of human invention, and also the lives and manners both of priests and people were much corrupted, yet both our Saviour and his disciples went to the synsgogue, as members of the church of Nazareth, every sabbath-day, joining with them in the public worship.
From whence we may reasonably infer, that such Christians as do quietly and peaceably comply with the practice of the church in whose communion they live, in the observation of such indifferent rites as are used by her, act most agreeable to our Saviour’s practice and example.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v14 After Christ had vanquished the evil spirit, he made…
After Christ had vanquished the evil spirit, he made it appear how much he was under the influence of the good Spirit; and, having defended himself against the devil's assaults, he now begins to act offensively, and to make those attacks upon him, by his preaching and miracles, which he could not resist or repel. Observe,
I. What is here said in general of his preaching, and the entertainment it met with in Galilee, a remote part of the country, distant from Jerusalem; it was a part of Christ's humiliation that he began his ministry there.
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But, 1. Thither he came in the power of the Spirit. The same Spirit that qualified him for the exercise of his prophetical office strongly inclined him to it. He was not to wait for a call from men, for he had light and life in himself. 2. There he taught in their synagogues, their places of public worship, where they met, not, as in the temple, for ceremonial services, but for the moral acts of devotion, to read, expound, and apply, the word, to pray and praise, and for church-discipline; these came to be more frequent since the captivity, when the ceremonial worship was near expiring. 3. This he did so as that he gained a great reputation. A fame of him went through all that region (Luk 4:14), and it was a good fame; for (Luk 4:15) he was glorified of all. Every body admired him, and cried him up; they never heard such preaching in all their lives. Now, at first, he met with no contempt or contradiction; all glorified him, and there were none as yet that vilified him.
II. Of his preaching at Nazareth, the city where he was brought up; and the entertainment it met with there. And here we are told how he preached there, and how he was persecuted.
1. How he preached there. In that observe,
(1.) The opportunity he had for it: He came to Nazareth when he had gained a reputation in other places, in hopes that thereby something at least of the contempt and prejudice with which his countrymen would look upon him might be worn off. There he took occasion to preach, [1.] In the synagogue, the proper place, where it had been his custom to attend when he was a private person, Luk 4:16. We ought to attend on the public worship of God, as we have opportunity. But, now that he was entered upon his public ministry, there he preached. Where the multitudes of fish were, there this wise Fisherman would cast his net. [2.] On the sabbath day, the proper time which the pious Jews spent, not in a mere ceremonial rest from worldly labour, but in the duties of God's worship, as of old they frequented the schools of the prophets on the new moons and the sabbaths. Note, It is good to keep sabbaths in solemn assemblies.
(2.) The call he had to it. [1.] He stood up to read. They had in their synagogues seven readers every sabbath, the first a priest, the second a Levite, and the other five Israelites of that synagogue. We often find Christ preaching in other synagogues, but never reading, except in this synagogue at Nazareth, of which he had been many years a member. Now he offered his service as he had perhaps often done; he read one of the lessons out of the prophets, Act 13:15. Note, The reading of the scripture is very proper work to be done in religious assemblies; and Christ himself did not think it any disparagement to him to be employed in it. [2.] The book of the prophet Esaias was delivered to him, either by the ruler of the synagogue or by the minister mentioned (Luk 4:20), so that he was no intruder, but duly authorized pro hac vice - on this occasion. The second lesson for that day being in the prophecy of Esaias, they gave him that volume to read in.
(3.) The text he preached upon. He stood up to read, to teach us reverence in reading and hearing the word of God. When Ezra opened the book of the law, all the people stood up (Neh 8:5); so did Christ here, when he read in the book of the prophets. Now the book being delivered to him, [1.] He opened it. The books of the Old Testament were in a manner shut up till Christ opened them, Isa 29:11. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to take the book, and open the seals; for he can open, not the book only, but the understanding. [2.] He found the place which was appointed to be read that day in course, which he needed not to be directed to; he soon found it, and read it, and took it for his text. Now his text was taken out of Isa 61:1, Isa 61:2, which is here quoted at large, Luk 4:18, Luk 4:19. There was a providence in it that that portion of scripture should be read that day, which speaks so very plainly of the Messiah, that they might be left inexcusable who knew him not, though they heard the voices of the prophets read every sabbath day, which bore witness of him, Act 13:27. This text gives a full account of Christ's undertaking, and the work he came into the world to do. Observe,
First, How he was qualified for the work: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. All the gifts and graces of the Spirit were conferred upon him, not by measure, as upon other prophets, but without measure, Joh 3:34. He now came in the power of the Spirit, Luk 4:14.
Secondly, How he was commissioned: Because he had anointed me, and sent me. His extraordinary qualification amounted to a commission; his being anointed signifies both his being fitted for the undertaking and called to it. Those whom God appoints to any service he anoints for it: "Because he hath sent me, he hath sent his Spirit along with me."
Thirdly, What his work was. He was qualified and commissioned,
1. To be a great prophet. He was anointed to preach; that is three times mentioned here, for that was the work he was now entering upon. Observe, (1.) To whom he was to preach: to the poor; to those that were poor in the world, whom the Jewish doctors disdained to undertake the teaching of and spoke of with contempt; to those that were poor in spirit, to the meek and humble, and to those that were truly sorrowful for sin: to them the gospel and the grace of it will be welcome, and they shall have it, Mat 11:5. (2.) What he was to preach. In general, he must preach the gospel. He is sent evangelizesthai - to evangelize them; not only to preach to them, but to make that preaching effectual; to bring it, not only to their ears, but to their hearts, and deliver them into the mould of it. Three things he is to preach: -
[1.] Deliverance to the captives, The gospel is a proclamation of liberty, like that to Israel in Egypt and in Babylon. By the merit of Christ sinners may be loosed from the bonds of guilt, and by his Spirit and grace from the bondage of corruption. It is a deliverance from the worst of thraldoms, which all those shall have the benefit of that are willing to make Christ their Head, and are willing to be ruled by him.
[2.] Recovering of sight to the blind. He came not only by the word of his gospel to bring light to them that sat in the dark, but by the power of his grace to give sight to them that were blind; not only the Gentile world, but every unregenerate soul, that is not only in bondage, but in blindness, like Samson and Zedekiah. Christ came to tell us that he has eye-salve for us, which we may have for the asking; that, if our prayer be, Lord, that our eyes may be opened, his answer shall be, Receive your sight.
[3.] The acceptable year of the Lord, Luk 4:19. He came to let the world know that the God whom they had offended was willing to be reconciled to them, and to accept of them upon new terms; that there was yet a way of making their services acceptable to him; that there is now a time of good will toward men. It alludes to the year of release, or that of jubilee, which was an acceptable year to servants, who were then set at liberty; to debtors, against whom all actions then dropped; and to those who had mortgaged their lands, for then they returned to them again. Christ came to sound the jubilee-trumpet; and blessed were they that heard the joyful sound, Psa 89:15. It was an acceptable time, for it was a day of salvation.
2. Christ came to be a great Physician; for he was sent to heal the broken-hearted, to comfort and cure afflicted consciences, to give peace to those that were troubled and humbled for sins, and under a dread of God's wrath against them for them, and to bring them to rest who were weary and heavy-laden, under the burden of guilt and corruption.
3. To be a great Redeemer. He not only proclaims liberty to the captives, as Cyrus did to the Jews in Babylon (Whoever will, may go up), but he sets at liberty them that are bruised; he doth by his Spirit incline and enable them to make use of the liberty granted, as then none did but those whose spirit God stirred up, Ezr 1:5. He came in God's name to discharge poor sinners that were debtors and prisoners to divine justice. The prophets could but proclaim liberty, but Christ, as one having authority, as one that had power on earth to forgive sins, came to set at liberty; and therefore this clause is added here. Dr. Lightfoot thinks that, according to a liberty the Jew allowed their readers, to compare scripture with scripture, in their reading, for the explication of the text, Christ added it from Isa 58:6, where it is made the duty of the acceptable year to let the oppressed go free, where the phrase the Septuagint uses is the same with this here.
(4.) Here is Christ's application of this text to himself (Luk 4:21): When he had read it, he rolled up the book, and gave it again to the minister, or clerk, that attended, and sat down, according to the custom of the Jewish teachers; he sat daily in the temple, teaching, Mat 26:55. Now he began his discourse thus, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. This, which Isaiah wrote by way of prophecy, I have now read to you by way of history." It now began to be fulfilled in Christ's entrance upon his public ministry; now, in the report they heard of his preaching and miracles in other places; now, in his preaching to them in their own synagogue. It is most probable that Christ went on, and showed particularly how this scripture was fulfilled in the doctrine he preached concerning the kingdom of heaven at hand; that it was preaching liberty, and sight, and healing, and all the blessings of the acceptable year of the Lord. Many other gracious words proceeded out of his mouth, which these were but the beginning of; for Christ often preached long sermons, which we have but a short account of. This was enough to introduce a great deal: This day is this scripture fulfilled. Note, [1.] All the scriptures of the Old Testament that were to be fulfilled in the Messiah had their full accomplishment in the Lord Jesus, which abundantly proves that this was he that should come. [2.] In the providences of God, it is fit to observe the fulfilling of the scriptures. The works of God are the accomplishment not only of his secret word, but of his word revealed; and it will help us to understand both the scriptures and the providences of God to compare them one with another.
(5.) Here is the attention and admiration of the auditors.
[1.] Their attention (Luk 4:20): The eyes of all them that were in the synagogue (and, probably, there were a great many) were fastened on him, big with expectation what he would say, having heard so much of late concerning him. Note, It is good, in hearing the word, to keep the eye fixed upon the minister by whom God is speaking to us; for, as the eye effects the heart, so, usually, the heart follows the eye, and is wandering, or fixed, as that is. Or, rather, let us learn hence to keep the eye fixed upon Christ speaking to us in and by the minister. What saith my Lord unto his servants?
[2.] Their admiration (Luk 4:22): They all bore him witness that he spoke admirably well, and to the purpose. They all commended him, and wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth; and yet, as appears by what follows, they did not believe in him. Note, It is possible that those who are admirers of good ministers and good preaching may yet be themselves not true Christians. Observe, First, What it was they admired: The gracious words which proceedeth out of his mouth. The words of grace; good words, and spoken in a winning melting way. Note, Christ's words are words of grace, for, grace being poured into his lips (Psa 45:2), words of grace poured from them. And these words of grace are to be wondered at; Christ's name was Wonderful, and in nothing was he more so than in his grace, in the words of his grace, and the power that went along with those words. We may well wonder that he should speak such words of grace to such graceless wretches as we are. Secondly, What it was that increased their wonder and that was the consideration of his original: They said, Is not this Joseph's son, and therefore his extraction mean and his education mean? Some from this suggestion took occasion perhaps so much the more to admire his gracious words, concluding he must needs be taught of God, for they knew no one else had taught him; while others perhaps with this consideration corrected their wonder at his gracious words, and concluded there could be nothing really admirable in them, whatever appeared, because he was the Son of Joseph. Can any thing great, or worthy our regard, come from one so mean?
(6.) Christ's anticipating an objection which he knew to be in the minds of many of his hearers. Observe,
[1.] What the objection was (Luk 4:23): "You will surely say to me, Physician, heal thyself. Because you know that I am the Son of Joseph, your neighbour, you will expect that I should work miracles among you, as I have done in other places; as one would expect that a physician, if he be able, should heal, not only himself, but those of his own family and fraternity." Most of Christ's miracles were cures; - "Now why should not the sick in thine own city be healed as well as those in other cities?" They were designed to cure people of their unbelief; - "Now why should not the disease of unbelief, if it be indeed a disease, be cured in those of thine own city as well as in those of others? Whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, that has been so much talked of, do here also in thine own country." They were pleased with Christ's gracious words, only because they hoped they were but the introduction to some wondrous works of his. They wanted to have their lame, and blind, and sick, and lepers, healed and helped, that the charge of their town might be eased; and that was the chief thing they looked at. They thought their own town as worthy to be the stage of miracles as any other; and why should not he rather draw company to that than to any other? And why should not his neighbours and acquaintances have the benefit of his preaching and miracles, rather than any other?
[2.] How he answers this objection against the course he took.
First, By a plain and positive reason why he would not make Nazareth his headquarters (Luk 4:24), because it generally holds true that no prophet is accepted in his own country, at least not so well, nor with such probability of doing good, as in some other country; experience seals this. When prophets have been sent with messages and miracles of mercy, few of their own country-men, that have known their extraction and education, have been fit to receive them. So Dr. Hammond. Familiarity breeds contempt; and we are apt to think meanly of those whose conversation we have been accustomed to; and they will scarcely be duly honoured as prophets who were well known when they were in the rank of private men. That is most esteemed that is far-fetched and dear-bought, above what is home-bred, though really more excellent. This arises likewise from the envy which neighbours commonly have towards one another, so that they cannot endure to see him their superior whom awhile ago they took to be every way their inferior. For this reason, Christ declined working miracles, or doing any thing extraordinary, at Nazareth, because of the rooted prejudices they had against him there.
Secondly, By pertinent examples of two of the most famous prophets of the Old Testament, who chose to dispense their favours among foreigners rather than among their own countrymen, and that, no doubt, by divine direction. 1. Elijah maintained a widow of Sarepta, a city of Sidon, one that was a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel, when there was a famine in the land, Luk 4:25, Luk 4:26. The story we have Kg1 17:9, etc. It is said there that the heaven was shut up three years and six months; whereas it is said, Kg1 18:1, that in the third year Elijah showed himself to Ahab, and there was rain; but that was not the third year of the drought, but the third year of Elijah's sojourning with the widow of Sarepta. As God would hereby show himself a Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widows, so he would show that he was rich in mercy to all, even to the Gentiles. 2. Elisha cleansed Naaman the Syrian of his leprosy, though he was a Syrian, and not only a foreigner, but an enemy to Israel (Luk 4:27); Many lepers were in Israel in the days of Eliseus, four particularly, that brought the news of the Syrians' raising the siege of Samaria with precipitation, and leaving the plunder of their tents to enrich Samaria, when Elisha was himself in the besieged city, and this was the accomplishment of his prophecy too; see Kg2 7:1, Kg2 7:3, etc. And yet we do not find that Elisha cleansed them, no not for a reward of their service, and the good tidings they brought, but only the Syrian; for none besides had faith to apply himself to the prophet for a cure. Christ himself often met with greater faith among Gentiles than in Israel. And here he mentions both these instances, to show that he did not dispense the favour of his miracles by private respect, but according to God's wise appointment. And the people of Israel might as justly have said to Elijah, or Elisha, as the Nazarenes to Christ, Physician, heal thyself. Nay, Christ wrought his miracles, though not among his townsmen, yet among Israelites, whereas these great prophets wrought theirs among Gentiles. The examples of the saints, though they will not make a bad action good, yet will help to free a good action from the blame of exceptious people.
2. How he was persecuted at Nazareth.
(1.) That which provoked them was his taking notice of the favour which God by Elijah and Elisha showed to the Gentiles: When they heard these things, they were filled with wrath (Luk 4:28), they were all so; a great change since Luk 4:22, when they wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth; thus uncertain are the opinions and affections of the multitude, and so very fickle. If they had mixed faith with those gracious words of Christ which they wondered at, they would have been awakened by these latter words of his to take heed of sinning away their opportunities; but those only pleased the ear, and went no further, and therefore these grated on the ear, and irritated their corruptions. They were angry that he should compare himself, whom they knew to be the son of Joseph, with those great prophets, and compare them with the men of that corrupt age, when all had bowed the knee to Baal. But that which especially exasperated them was that he intimated some kindness God had in reserve for the Gentiles, which the Jews could by no means bear the thoughts of, Act 22:21. Their pious ancestors pleased themselves with the hopes of adding the Gentiles to the church (witness many of David's psalms and Isaiah's prophecies); but this degenerate race, when they had forfeited the covenant themselves, hated to think that any others should be taken in.
(2.) They were provoked to that degree that they made an attempt upon his life. This was a severe trial, now at his setting out, but a specimen of the usage he met with when he came to his own, and they received him not. [1.] They rose up in a tumultuous manner against him, interrupted him in his discourse, and themselves in their devotions, for they could not stay until their synagogue-worship was over. [2.] They thrust him out of the city, as one not worthy to have a residence among them, though there he had had a settlement so long. They thrust from them the Saviour and the salvation, as if he had been the offscouring of all things. How justly might he have called for fire from heaven upon them! But this was the day of his patience. [3.] They led him to the brow of the hill, with a purpose to throw him down headlong, as one not fit to live. Though they knew how inoffensively he had for so many years lived among them, how shining his conversation had been, - though they had heard such a fame of him and had but just now themselves admired his gracious words, - though in justice he ought to have been allowed a fair hearing and liberty to explain himself, yet they hurried him away in a popular fury, or frenzy rather, to put him to death in a most barbarous manner. Sometimes they were ready to stone him for the good works he did (Joh 10:32), here for not doing the good works they expected from him. To such a height of wickedness was violence sprung up.
(3.) Yet he escaped, because his hour was not yet come: He passed through the midst of them unhurt. Either he blinded their eyes, as God did those of the Sodomites and Syrians, or he bound their hands, or filled them with confusion, so that they could not do what they designed; for his work was not done, it was but just begun; his hour was not yet come, when it was come, he freely surrendered himself. They drove him from them, and he went his way. He would have gathered Nazareth, but they would not, and therefore their house is left to them desolate. This added to the reproach of his being Jesus of Nazareth, that not only it was a place whence no good thing was expected, but that it was such a wicked, rude place, and so unkind to him. Yet there was a providence in it, that he should not be much respected by the men of Nazareth, for that would have looked like a collusion between him and his old acquaintance; but now, though they received him not, there were those that did.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv13–24 And when the devil had ended all the temptation,....…
And when the devil had ended all the temptation,.... Or "all his temptations", as the Syriac version reads; not only the last mentioned, but all the rest, whether inward or outward, in a visible or in an invisible manner; whether during his forty days fast, or after he was an hungered, when he had tried every way, and all sorts of temptations with him; and when he had done this, "in", or "with all his power", as the Ethiopic version reads; "when he had done his utmost", and his best; and as the Persic version adds, "and profited nothing"; could not succeed, or get any advantage over him:
he departed from him for a season; till another opportunity should offer, or till that time should come, when would be the hour and power of darkness; and by means of one of his disciples, he should bruise his heel, and bring him to an accursed death; Joh 14:30.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24 A convenient season - In the garden of Gethsemane,…
A convenient season - In the garden of Gethsemane, chap. xxii, 53.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24 Verse 14. Returned in the power of the Spirit]…
Verse 14. Returned in the power of the Spirit] Εν τῃ δυναμει του πνευματος, In the mighty power of the Spirit. Having now conquered the grand adversary, he comes in the miracle-working energy of the Spirit to show forth his power, godhead, and love to the people, that they might believe and be saved. He who, through the grace of God, resists and overcomes temptation, is always bettered by it. This is one of the wonders of God's grace, that those very things which are designed for our utter ruin he makes the instruments of our greatest good. Thus Satan is ever duped by his own proceedings, and caught in his own craft.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv13, 14, 17, 20, 22, 23 Luk 4:13. When the devil had ended, &c., he…
Luk 4:13. When the devil had ended, &c., he departed from him for a season — This implies that he assaulted him afterward, which, if not before, he certainly did in the garden of Gethsemane, Luk 22:53, where Jesus saith to the Jews, This is your hour, and the power of darkness. When the tempter was gone, a number of good angels came and ministered to Jesus, bringing him every thing he had need of; as appears from the force of the expression, διηκονουν αυτω. See note on Mat 4:11.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv15–24 Glorified of all - Praised by all; or, all…
Glorified of all - Praised by all; or, all were pleased with his instructions, and admired his wisdom.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23 For a time, viz. until his Passion, in which…
For a time, viz. until his Passion, in which he again most grievously tempted him, by the hands of impious persecutors, whom he could not overcome with sensuality, covetousness, or vanity. The devil now deals with men in the same manner. He tempts them, and, being overcome, leaves them for a time, to prompt them to rest in a fatal security; that indulging indolence, they may at some future period be attacked, with greater certainty of success, when unprepared. Knowing, therefore, the trick and design of our infernal enemy, how much does it behove us to be on our guard; and having overcome in one temptation, prepare ourselves for another; never resting in the presumptuous thought, that we are sufficiently strong in virtue to resist the enemy, without fresh preparation. (Dionysius) --- This history of the various temptations to which our Saviour subjects himself, as related by St. Luke, is exactly the same as that given by St. Matthew with this only difference, that the order in which the temptations took place is not the same in both evangelists: but it does not matter what order is observed, where all the circumstances are related. (St. Augustine)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v14 THE JOURNEYINGS (Luk_4:14 to Luk_9:50)
SECOND SECTION
THE JOURNEYINGS (Luk_4:14 to Luk_9:50)
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A. Nazareth.—The First Rejection of the Holy Son of Man by the Sinful Children of Men. Luk_4:14-30
14And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out afame of him through all the region round about. 15And he taught in their synagogues,being glorified [receiving honor] of all. 16And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was,5 he went into the synagogue on the Sabbathday and stood up for to read [stood up to read]. 17And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened [unrolled] the book,he found the place where it was written, 18The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel [or to bring good tidings] to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted,6 to preach deliverance to the captives, andrecovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19To preach theacceptable year of the Lord. 20And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister [attendant] and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagoguewere fastened upon him. 21And he began to say unto them, This day is thisScripture fulfilled in your ears. 22And all bare him [honorable] witness, and wondered at the gracious words [words of grace7] which proceeded out of his mouth. And theysaid, Is not this Joseph’s son? 23And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country [native place]. 24And he said, Verily I say unto you, Noprophet is accepted in his own country. 25But I tell you of a truth, many widows were [there were many widows] in Israel in the days of Elias [Elijah], when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when [a] great famine was throughout [came upon] all the land; 26But unto none [no one] of them was Elias [Elijah] sent, save untoSarepta [Zarephath], a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. 27And many lepers were [there were many lepers] in Israel in the time of Eliseus [Elisha] the prophet; and none [no one] of them was cleansed, saving [save] Naaman the Syrian.28And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,29And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow [or, a cliff]30of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he, passing through the midst of them, went his way.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Luk_4:14. And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee.—With these words Luke begins to portray the public activity of the Lord in Galilee. Respecting this activity in general, see Lange’s Matthew, p. 91. That Luke speaks of a return of the Lord to Galilee, while Mark only speaks in general of a coming (1:14), is easily explicable from the fact that he had already spoken of a longer abode of Jesus in Galilee (Luk_2:39-52). And in saying that this took place in the power of the Spirit, he indicates not obscurely that the Spirit which was poured out at His baptism upon the Saviour, far from being suppressed or departing from Him in consequence of the temptation in the wilderness, on the other hand, exhibited itself for the first time in full power in Him after the triumph there achieved. As Bengel also has it: Post victoriam corroboratus.
A fame.—Not a “fame of the return of the man that had been so marked out at His baptism and then hidden more than forty days” (Meyer); for it is quite as destitute of proof that the testimony given to the Lord at His baptism took place coram populo congregato as that John should have spoken of the miracle at the baptism to any one. Luk_4:14 plainly anticipates Luk_4:15, in which latter the actual cause of this fame is first stated. The doctrine which He preaches draws astonished attention, and finds at the beginning acceptance. This account of Luke deserves attention the more, from the fact that hitherto he has mentioned no miracles as the cause of this φήμη. The word of the Saviour in and of itself, independently even of the way in which He afterwards confirmed it, appears at once to have come home to many.
Luk_4:15. And He taught.—Luke in this expression gives only a general account of the earliest activity of the Lord in Galilee, and moreover passes over all that preceded His appearance in Nazareth (Luk_4:16 seq.) in silence. It is not here the place to adventure ourselves in the labyrinth of the New Testament harmony and chronology. If any one, however, wishes to know how we believe that after the forty days’ temptation the different events are to be arranged, they appear to us to have followed one another in the following order:
1. The first friends (Joh_1:35-51);
2. The first miracle (Joh_2:1-12);
3. The first passover (Joh_2:13-22);
4. Jesus and Nicodemus (Joh_2:23 to Joh_3:21);
5. The Messiah in Samaria (Joh_4:1 seq.);
6. The second miracle in Cana (Joh_4:43 seq.);
7. The first sermon in Nazareth (Luk_4:16-30).
Luk_4:14, therefore, according to our opinion, proceeds parallel with Joh_4:43. The first sermon at Nazareth was immediately preceded by the second miracle of Cana, Joh_4:43 seq., and was followed immediately by the removal to Capernaum, Mat_4:13.
Luk_4:16. And He came to Nazareth.—The question is, whether this visit to Nazareth was the same as that related in Mat_13:55-58, and if this is the case, which of the Synoptics has communicated this circumstance in its most exact historic connection. The first question we believe, with others and with Lange (Matthew, p. 255), that we must answer affirmatively; and in respect to the second inquiry, that we must give the preference to Luke. The opinion that the Lord preached twice in this way at Nazareth encounters, according to our view, insurmountable difficulties. That Jesus, after such treatment as is related by Luke, Luk_4:30, should have returned yet again; that He should have preached there again, should again have heard the same reproach, should again have given the same answer, is a supposition that perhaps no one would have defended had not his harmony been guided by doctrinal considerations and interests. Luke, it is true, does not speak of the miracles which are reported Mat_13:58. But nothing hinders us from assuming that He had already performed these before the sermon in the synagogue, since (Luk_4:27-29) immediately after that the attack upon His life followed, although Matthew and Mark end their account respecting Nazareth with the mention of these miracles. It appears that the Lord even before the sermon communicated by Luke had thought in this way to dispose their hearts in His favor,—and let it not be said that this is an artificial interpretation (Stier). Is it not improbable that the Lord should only have remained one day at Nazareth and should only have come into the town on the same Sabbath on which He entered the synagogue? Even the Jewish Sabbath laws, which restricted travelling on this day, forbade this, and, on the supposition that the Lord had already wrought some miracles at Nazareth, His severe discourse acquires double force, and the comparison with the miracles of Elijah and Elisha, moreover, is fully in place. We do not admit the objection that then the words which the Lord puts in their mouths, Luk_4:23, would no longer be applicable. On the contrary, they were not content with the miracles wrought among themselves, but, on the other hand, desired miracles like those at Capernaum (Joh_4:45), miracles such as awaken astonishment at a distance. Why should not the report of that which had been done for the βασιλικός at Capernaum have made its way to Nazareth? and is there indeed anything that is harder to appease than the craving for marvels? If any one, however, believes that all the difficulties are not in this way, either, removed out of the way, he will yet have to acknowledge that the difficulties which spring from the repetition of all these events are at any rate somewhat more numerous.
Where He had been brought up.—Evidently this account points back to the history of His childhood. A holy moment in the life of the Lord, when He for the first time should teach in the synagogue of the town in which He has spent so many years in silence. Respecting Nazareth, see Lange on Mat_2:23.
As His custom was.—Videmus, quid egerit adolescens Jesus Nazarethœ, ante baptismum. Bengel. Apparently (see above) this Sabbath was the first after His return to Nazareth, where the Lord, before this public appearance, had already wrought some miracles in a smaller circle, and appears to have remarked the first traces of unbelief (Mat_13:58; Mar_6:5), the rebuke of which, in His first discourse, would otherwise not have been immediately necessary.
And stood up to read.—Hitherto He had always been accustomed to sit among the hearers. The public reading in the synagogue consisted of a portion of the Law, which, in regular order, was followed by a section of the Prophets. Besides this, opportunity was sometimes given to respectable strangers to give a free word of exhortation or consolation (Act_13:15), and the Saviour’s rising served as a token that He also wished to make use of this liberty. The public reading of the Law had already taken place, and that of the Prophets was about to begin. He, therefore, receives from the hand of the attendant the roll, out of which on that day, according to the customary sequence, the lesson was to be read. It was that of Isaiah, and after He had unrolled this holy book, He finds, certainly without seeking, yet not without special higher guidance, the prophetic passage referred to.
Luk_4:17. The place where it was written.—Strictly speaking, this passage (Isa_61:1) was the haphthara appointed for the morning of the great Day of Atonement (the 10th Tishri), and on this account Bengel, in his Ordo Temporum, p. 220, believed himself to have here come upon an infallible chronological datum; yet, even if it were assumed that this division of the lessons was already in use in the Saviour’s time, it would then be surprising that Luke has not said a word here of His seeking an appointed prophecy: exactly the opposite.
Luk_4:18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.—Isaiah 61, freely quoted after the Septuagint. Jesus probably read the passage aloud in Hebrew, but Luke appears to communicate it from memory according to the Alexandrian version. From this arises the difference between the original text and the citation, which is more particularly stated by De Wette (ad locum). He has even taken the words: ἀποστεῖλαι τεθραυσμέν. ἐν ἀφ. from Isa_58:6, so that accordingly he gives not so much the letter as the main thought of the text of this sermon. This text appears, however, to have been designedly ended at the words: The acceptable year of the Lord (that is, the definite time in which the Lord is gracious), although commonly not less than 21 verses were read from the Prophets. The freedom was used, according to later authors also, of often deviating from this usage, and then 3, 5, or 7 verses were sometimes read aloud. See Sepp, Leben Jesu, ii. p. 123. As respects the passage in itself, the prophet undoubtedly speaks primarily of his own vocation and dignity, but as the servant of Jehovah he was in his work and destiny the type and image of the Messiah, the perfect servant of the Father. What at the time of Isaiah was only relatively true for himself, could hold good in its full significance only of the Messiah, who had brought in an eternal redemption. Therefore Jesus can with the fullest right begin: ὅτι σήμερον, κ.τ.λ. Comp. Hoffmann, Weissag., and Erf. ii. p. 96.
Luk_4:20. And when He had rolled up the book.—It is, of course, to be understood that the words: “To-day is this Scripture fulfilled,” &c., constituted not properly the contents but the beginning of this discourse. The text chosen gives the Lord occasion to set forth the work to be accomplished by Him on its most amiable side; no wonder, therefore, that the eyes of all are directed upon Him. With this one picturesque stroke, Luke (Pictor) gives to his narrative the greatest distinctness, and places us, as it were, in the midst of the citizens of Nazareth. What here took place he probably learned from Mary, or one of the ἀδελφοί, who were certainly present at this first discourse of Jesus of Nazareth, and therefore, he is able to go more into detail than Matthew and Mark, and even to communicate the prophetic text. Respecting the fulfilment of a prophecy, comp., moreover, the remark in O. von Gerlach, N. T. on Mat_2:16.
Luk_4:22. And all bare Him witness.—To the gracious words of the Saviour is this testimony given, and from this it becomes very soon evident that it does not respect the contents but the form of the discourse of the Lord. They admired not what but the way in which the Saviour spoke, especially when they remembered His humble origin, which would have given occasion to no such expectation; for it is, of course, certain that the inhabitants of Nazareth could not have known of the mystery of His conception by the Holy Ghost. This passage, as well as Joh_7:46, is noteworthy, since it gives an unimpeachable evidence of the irresistible impression which the graciousness of the manner of Jesus in His discourse and preaching, produced even in the case of imperfectly developed or hostilely disposed persons.
Luk_4:23. Surely, πάντως.—The Lord has the certain expectation of that which they will allege against Him, since He sees the captiousness of prejudice arising already in their hearts, and He makes use of the proverbial expression: “Physician, heal thyself,” not only in order to express His meaning more plainly, but also to give them an intimation in respect to the blessed purpose of His appearance as Israel’s physician. From comparison of Mat_13:57 and Mar_6:4 with Luk_4:24 it appears that the Synoptics deviate in some measure from each other in the report of the words in which the Lord expressed the idea that a prophet usually has nowhere less authority than in his own country. It is very possible that He used this apophthegm often, and that with slight variations; the most original and simple form of the proverb, however, we believe that we find in this passage of Luke. As to the causes why the prophet in his own immediate circle receives less honor than elsewhere, Neander deserves to be compared in his Leben Jesu, at this passage.—Heal thyself, not: “Undertake the remedy of thine own poverty before the world,” or, “Take better care than hitherto of thy prophetic dignity;” but: “Help thine own countrymen, who are naturally the nearest to thee.” The figurative words are sufficiently explained by the literal words immediately following them: “What we have heard,” &c. To the craving for the marvellous, which of itself, indeed, knows no bounds, there is added now, moreover, the reckoning how great a fame their despised village would attain if He should make it the centre of a brilliant miraculous activity. On this account they indirectly reproach Him with having already bestowed an honor on Capernaum, to which they properly had the nearest claim. Of the many miracles which the Lord had already at an earlier point of time performed in Jerusalem (Joh_2:23), they appear as yet to have learned nothing.
Luk_4:25. Many widows were in Israel.—With the greatest humility He, who was so much more than a prophet, places Himself so far on an equality with the prophets in the Old Testament as this, that He together with them must be content to suffer an unbelieving rejection, which, it is true, is most severely requited by God. This we see from two examples taken from the life of Elijah and Elisha, which are doubly noteworthy for this reason, that here at the beginning of the public life of Jesus in somewhat covert wise the same thing is announced which the Saviour at the end with explicit words threatens the Jews with, as punishment for their unbelief. See Mat_21:43.
As repects now the first of these examples, comp. 1Ki_17:18. There has some difficulty arisen, from the fact that the duration of the drought here (as well as in Jam_5:17) is stated as three years and six months, while from 1 Kings 18 it appears to result that Elijah in the 3d year returned to Ahab, and very soon after his return the rain commenced. We cannot agree with De Wette, who here, by comparison with Dan_12:7, maintains that he has deduced the fact, that it was a Jewish custom to give to a period of calamity the average duration of three and a half years, and as little can we assume with others (e.g., Gebser, Commentary on James), that in the New Testament another reckoning of time has been followed from that in the Old. We prefer supposing, with Olshausen, that the third year, 1Ki_18:1, must be reckoned from the arrival of Elijah at Sarepta, 1Ki_17:9, which, however, had been already preceded by a year of drought, during which the prophet had abode at the brook Cherith, Luk_4:7.—That Elijah was actually sent only to this one and to no one of the many widows in Israel besides, we should not be absolutely obliged to conclude from the Old Testament, but we assume it upon the infallible word of the Saviour. [As our Lord here evidently proceeds upon the common ground of the history, which both parties were alike acquainted with, this last remark appears superfluous.—C. C. S.]
Luk_4:27. Many lepers.—Comp. 2Ki_7:3.—In the time of Elijah, ἐπί. Comp. Luk_3:2; Mar_2:26; Act_11:28.—Naaman. See 2, Kings 6:1–19. “Then might,” the Lord means to say, “the Jews also have been able to say to Elijah and Elisha: Do the same also here in your country.” But it was not possible, because the Jews did not seek the help which they had at the door, and closed their hearts against the Lord. “Theophilus, doubtless, when he read this, rejoiced in the God who is truly also the God of the Gentiles.” Besser. The mention of the history of Naaman was the more humiliating since he had first been unbelieving, but afterwards, on the representations of his simple-minded servants, had become believing.
It would be most unjust to accuse this turn, which the Saviour gave His discourse, of excessive harshness (Hase, De Wette), since we must not forget what an unloving judgment (Luk_4:22-23), respecting His person and His work had preceded it, and how here everything depends on the tone and the voice of the speaker. Moreover, since Luke communicates to us only the main substance of the whole address, we must be very careful of rendering here a precipitate judgment; we have rather here to admire the wise Physician who does not shrink from heroic methods in order to attack the very heart of the chief moral disease of His contemporaries, namely, sensuousness and earthly-minded expectations, and who will rather set at stake His own safety than spare their perverseness. And ought not He who had spent so many years of retirement at Nazareth, and had carefully observed the moral condition of its inhabitants, to have been better able to judge how sternly and severely He was obliged to rebuke, than modern criticism, which here also is very far from being without pre-suppositions?
Luk_4:28. And all they in the synagogue … were filled with wrath.—The veritas odium parit never belied itself less than in respect to the Saviour, in whom the ἀλήθεια itself was personally manifested upon earth. How little do the embittered hearers apprehend that precisely by this they give the proof of the justice of the rebuke which they had heard! The reception which Jesus here found, agrees remarkably with that which afterwards Stephen found (Act_7:51). And if this rise of bitterness is compared with the earlier enthusiasm, Luk_4:22, it shows in a striking manner the inconstancy of human honor as well as the untrustworthiness of human passions. Not at Rome alone did the Capitoline border hard on the Tarpeian rock.
Luk_4:29. A cliff of the hill.—Nazareth still lies at the present day on a mountain precipice of from 400 to 500 ft. high, which lifts itself above a valley of about a half a league in circumference; see Röhr, Palestine, pp. 126–129, and the other eminent narratives of travel. Near the Maronite church they still show the rocky wall on the west side of the town, from 40 to 50 ft. high, where the event of the text is said to have happened, and from which He could easily escape them through the narrow and crowded streets of the town (Robinson, p. 423). That the monks show at a distance of two English miles from Nazareth another Mount of Precipitation, where there are yet two stones against which (they say) the Lord leaned in defending Himself, and which yet show traces of His hands and feet, is doubtless one of the grossest errors which tradition has committed in the sphere of the Saviour’s life.
Luk_4:30. But He.—It will hardly be necessary to vindicate the historic reality of this fact against critics who are throughout disposed to place the Jews somewhat higher, and the Lord, indeed, somewhat lower than the Gospel does. Proofs of the turbulence, the cruelty, and the revengefulness of the Galileans can be found in abundance in Josephus, even in the history of his own life. As respects the escape of the Lord, we can here no more assume, with Olshausen, De Wette, and Strauss, something mysterious, than we can subscribe to the prosaic explanation: That He owed His deliverance only to the courage and the resoluteness with which He warded them off from Him (!!) and voluntarily expelled Himself from the synagogue, Joh_16:2 (Von Ammon). With Hase, Stier, and Lange, we ascribe Jesus’ escape to the composure with which He made a way for Himself, strong in the consciousness that His hour was not yet come. He goes thus, not in order to escape His Passion, but in order actively to await the agony of His Passion appointed for Him hereafter. Examples of the daunting influence which composure and self-control have often exercised, on raging crowds are too numerous to be all mentioned here. Let the reader only call to mind the effect of the crushing word: “Slave, wilt thou slay Marius?” and better than this, Joh_18:6. It is, then, unnecessary also to understand here a particular protection of God (in the sense of a miracle, Meyer), but it is better to bring all mirabilia of the kind, in the wider sense of the word, into connection with the elevated and wholly unique personality of the Lord—the absolute miraculum—to which, in a certain sense, it was innate to make such an impression on the rude rabble surrounding Him. “Not in any such sense as that they were struck with blindness does He go forth, invisible and with an outward miracle, for this is precisely what the Evangelist by διελθὼν διὰ μέσου means to deny; but He only beholds them with a look of His hitherto restrained majesty, reserved for this last need, and they, receiving yet another sign of His spiritual might as a parting token, are bound and incapable of touching Him. Nay, they are compelled on the right and left to make place reverently for His going forth. They stood, stumbled, sought, grew ashamed, fled, and went apart, as Pfenninger with striking pencil paints the close of the scene.” R. Stier.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The Saviour comes forward in the might of the same Spirit with which He was baptized and with which He overcame Satan. The account of His preaching at Nazareth is especially noteworthy, because it shows how His personality and His word, even without doing miracles, made an irresistible impression so long as the sensibility was not closed up through hostility and prejudice. We remark the same in Samaria, Joh_4:41-42. The history of the Saviour’s first preaching in the town of His bringing up, may also serve as a proof how fully applicable to Him is the word of the Psalm, Psa_45:3.
2. Jesus’ discourse at Nazareth may be named at the same time an opening sermon of His whole activity in Galilee. Impossible, indeed, would it be to find a more admirable text than the Saviour found in turning over the prophetic roll; it is a gospel in brief, the best description of the Christus Consolator. The poor, the prisoners, the blind are indeed the best representatives of the whole mass of suffering mankind. Their names present before our eyes misery and sin in their whole compass. Freedom, light, healing—what noble images of the salvation given in Christ! “Christ finds all those to whom He comes blind, without knowledge of God, bound of Satan, and kept prisoners under death, sin, and the law. For out of the Gospel there is nothing but utter darkness and captivity, so that even if we have some little knowledge, yet can we not follow the same, because we are bound.” Luther.
3. This sermon is of moment, because from it it appears in what relation Christ as Prophet placed Himself to the Old Testament. He grounds His proclamation of the Gospel upon the Scripture, cleaves not merely to its letter, but presses through to its spirit and proclaims Himself as the end of the Law and the Prophets. The Prophetic Scripture is the mirror in which He beholds His own image and shows it to His contemporaries. The genuine evangelical spirit comes to manifestation in an Old Testament form. Even the parallelismus membrorum, to be observed in the diction of the Old Testament, is not wanting in the way in which He opposes the widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, to the lepers in those of Elisha, and repeatedly declares: “To none of them,” &c. After such remarks the inquiry may well be called superfluous whether the Saviour, in the place where He was brought up, received into His soul the inmost spirit of the Scriptures of the Old Testament.
4. The Saviour at Nazareth reveals at once His double character as Physician and Prophet: as physician, who is treated with scorn when he wishes to prepare help for others and at once is bidden to heal himself; as prophet, who deserves the highest honor and does not receive the least. Upon the miracles wrought by the Lord in Nazareth, see Lange, Matthew, p. 255.
5. The first discourse of the Saviour at Nazareth bears so far as this a typico-symbolic character, that, on the one hand, it serves as a prototype of every true preaching of the gospel as to substance, ground, and tenor, and, on the other hand, as in a mirror brings to sight the cliffs on which the effects of a discourse commonly suffer shipwreck—earthly-mindedness, prejudice, pride. Of the four classes of persons who are designated in the parable of the Sower, we find here particularly the second and the third.
6. The manner in which the Saviour begins His sermon at Nazareth deserves, in form as well as matter, to be called a model for every true preacher of the gospel. Comp. the chapter: “Jésus Christ, modèle du prédicateur,” in the admirable tractate of Nap. Roussel, Comment il ne faut pas prêcher, Paris and London, 1857.
7. Nazareth’s synagogue is an image of unbelieving Israel, Nazareth’s rock an image of the unshakable composure and inward tranquillity of Jesus.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The triumphal return from the wilderness of temptation.—Whither Jesus comes, the fame of Him always precedes Him.—The beginning of His pilgrimage takes place under the most favoring presages.—Jesus returns to Nazareth, the place of His bringing up, as a prophet mighty in word and deed.—The heart-winning art of Jesus.—The visit to the synagogue on the Sabbath a settled custom of the Lord.—The public reading of the word of God an important part of the joint worship of God.—The high value of the prophetical word: 1. Before, 2. during, 3. after the time of the Saviour.—All mourners are comforted when Christ appears.—The true preacher of the gospel one anointed with the Holy Spirit.—The time of the New Covenant an acceptable year of the Lord; as such, the day of salvation is: 1. Announced, 2. manifested, 3. confirmed in the case of all believers.—The gracious year of the Lord precedes the day of vengeance of our God, yet the latter follows immediately.—Christ: 1. The consolation of the poor, 2. the freedom of the prisoners, 3. the light of the blind.—How admiration for the preacher may be united with the rejection of the preaching.—The might of prejudice against the truth.—The unbelief of earlier and later days at all times self-consistent: 1. Manifested, 2. punished, in the same way.—God’s greatest exhibitions of grace are lost on those who give ear only to the voice of flesh and blood.—The history of the Old Testament a testis temporum, lux veritatis, magistra vitœ.—A believing Gentile more acceptable to God than an unbelieving Jew.—No respect of persons with God.—Craving for miracles easily excited, never contented, severely rebuked.—“Unless ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.”—The poor of this world hath God chosen, &c., 1Co_1:26 seq.—The inconstancy of human laudations and emotions, Luk_4:22-28; comp. Act_14:18-19.—Jesus rejected in Nazareth an argument for the truth of the declaration Joh_1:11. It is striking that unbelieving rejection of the Saviour: 1. Still shows the same character, 2. still betrays the same origin, 3. still deserves the same judgment as the behavior of the inhabitants of Nazareth.—Christ the Vanquisher of His enemies even when He appears to give way to them.—The immovable composure of the Lord over against the blind rage of His enemies.—The servant of the Lord inviolable so long as his hour is not yet come.—What a distinction between the mountain in the wilderness where the Lord surveys the kingdoms of the earth, and the rock at Nazareth where He beholds His own life threatened! And yet upon both is He victorious, and even the Mount of Precipitation is a step to His enthronement and dominion over all.
Starke:—True preachers have to go through good and evil report, 2Co_6:8.—New preachers of the gospel are wont to be praised, but not long, for the people get tired and their ears itch again for new doctrines, 2Ti_4:3.—To visit the public assembly on the Sabbath is all Christians’ duty, Heb_10:25.—Hedinger:—The ground of all divine truth and its means of proof must be Scripture.—When men first begin with despising the person of a teacher, they are wont also commonly to despise his words and office.—Zeisius:—So long as the gospel is preached with sweet words, the godless also put up with it, but so soon as the application is made, the best appearing are often ready to burst with anger.—Osiander:—It is a folly of men to esteem highly what is strange, but to account as nothing what has come up among themselves.—Quesnel:—Truth embitters those whom it does not enlighten and convert (the gospel a cause of tumult, Luther).—Men are often worse than the devil, who did not do what the Jews wanted to do, Luk_4:29.—Canstein:—There is no might nor counsel against the Lord.—It is often prudence and magnanimity to give way to inflamed dispositions.
Heubner on Luk_4:18-19 :—The order of salvation is given in these verses as in 1Co_1:30 : 1. Wisdom =to preach the gospel to the poor; 2. righteousness =to heal the broken hearts (these words are, however, spurious. See above); 3. sanctification =to proclaim deliverance to the captive, &c.; 4. redemption =preaching the acceptable year of the Lord; in other words: 1. The prophetical, 2. the high-priestly, 3. and 4. the kingly office of the Lord. (Ingeniose magis quam vere! Van Oosterzee.)—Arndt:—The first sermon of Jesus at Nazareth: 1. How rich in matter it must have been; 2. what an impression must have been made!—Palmer:—How the people are astonished at the speech of the Lord! [Vere sed insipidissime.—C. C. S.]—Dræseke:—The acceptable year of the Lord.—Van Oosterzee (inaugural discourse in his native town Rotterdam upon Luk_4:16-22):—The first sermon of Jesus at Nazareth a standard for the minister of the gospel at the beginning of his work. The narrative imparts to the minister of the gospel pregnant suggestions: 1. In reference to the point of view from which he is to consider his work: a. origin, b. matter, c. object, of preaching (Luk_4:18-19). 2. In relation to the manner in which he must perform his work: as here the preaching must be: a. Grounded on Scripture, b. accommodated to the necessity of the hearers, c. presented in an attractive manner. 3. In relation to the fruit upon which he can reckon in this labor. Nazareth shows us: a. That blossoms are as yet no certain sign of fruit; b. that this fruit may be blasted by the most unhappy causes; c. that the harvest may turn out yet better than at the beginning it appears (there in the synagogue were Mary, and also the ἀδελφοί, who afterwards believed, and if the Saviour did not work many miracles at Nazareth, He yet wrought some, Mat_13:58). 4. In relation to the temper in which he is to begin a new work: a. With thankful recollections of the past (Luk_4:16); b. with holy spiritual might for the present (Luk_4:18); c. with joyful hope for the future (Luk_4:21). Happy the teacher who is permitted to begin his preaching under more favorable presages than Jesus began His in the city where He was brought up.
Footnotes:
[5]Luk_4:16.—From the position of this clause it might appear as if His custom had been not only to visit the synagogue on the Sabbath, but also to read in the public service, but the position of κατὰ τὸ εἰωθὸς in the Greek, makes it best to confine the reference to His habitual attendance in the synagogue.—C. C. S.]
[6]Luk_4:18.—The Rec. inserts ἰάσασθαι τοὺς συντετριμμένους τὴν καρδίαν, which, however, appears to be an interpolation from the LXX., Isa_61:1, rightly put in brackets by Lachmann, and rejected by De Wette and Meyer. [Wanting in B., D., L., and Sin.—C. C. S.]
[7]Luk_4:22.—Χάριτος does not refer to the ethical character of His words, but to their persuasive beauty. Anmuth, not Gnade.—C. C. S.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv18–24 To have fixed on any passage announcing His sufferings…
To have fixed on any passage announcing His sufferings (as Isa 53:1-12), would have been unsuitable at that early stage of His ministry. But He selects a passage announcing the sublime object of His whole mission, its divine character, and His special endowments for it; expressed in the first person, and so singularly adapted to the first opening of the mouth in His prophetic capacity, that it seems as if made expressly for this occasion. It is from the well-known section of Isaiah's prophecies whose burden is that mysterious "SERVANT OF THE LORD," despised of man, abhorred of the nation, but before whom kings on seeing Him are to arise, and princes to worship; in visage more marred than any man and His form than the sons of men, yet sprinkling many nations; laboring seemingly in vain, and spending His strength for naught and in vain, yet Jehovah's Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and be His Salvation to the ends of the earth (Isa. 49:1-26, &c.). The quotation is chiefly from the Septuagint version, used in the synagogues.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv13–24 13. All the temptation—The fast of Moses of forty…
13. All the temptation—The fast of Moses of forty days was doubtless a miniature image of Israel’s sojourn in the wilderness of forty years. So, too, this new founder of a spiritual Israel passes through the terrible ordeal which is representative of the probation his Church must pass in her earthly sojourning. Happy shall she be, like her Head, in the crowning victory.
For a season—Defeated and discouraged, Satan lets him alone for a while. But intense malignity allows neither the devil nor his angels or agents any permanent repose. He will harass Jesus, in his own person or through them, at every possible interval; and especially at the time of the events recorded Luk_22:3, and those following.
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To what we have said on the free moral agency of Christ, including his volitional power to obey temptation, we here add as follows. There are three views on the subject:
1. Christ had no volitional power to obey temptation. This is the old Calvinistic view, maintained especially by the adherents of the Synod of Dort, and especially by Dr. Edwards in his work on the Will.
2. The man Jesus had such volitional power. This is the old Arminian view, maintained by Episcopius, Limborch, and Curcellaeus, against the dogmas of Dort.
3. The eternal Logos had the volitional power to sin, having concentrated and reduced himself down to finite and human conditions. This is a German view not yet fully brought before the American Church. It is concisely but clearly presented and maintained by Dr. Nast in his commentary on Mat_4:1-11.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv13–24 13. had ended all the temptation] Rather, every temptation.…
13. had ended all the temptation] Rather, every temptation. “He had,” as Bengel says, “shot his last dart.” The temptations had been addressed (1) to the desire of the flesh—trying to make the test of Sonship to God consist not in obedience but in the absence of pain; (2) to the pride of life—as though earthly greatness were a sign of God’s approval, and as though greatness consisted in power and success; (3) to spiritual pride—as though the elect of God might do as they will, and be secure against consequences.
he departed] “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,” Jas_4:7.
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for a season] Rather, until an opportunity, though the meaning comes to be the same (Act_13:11). St Matthew adds “And lo! angels came and began to minister unto Him.” We do not again meet with angels in a visible form till the Agony in Gethsemane. It must not be imagined that our Lord was only tempted at this crisis. He shared temptation with us, as the common lot of our humanity. “Many other were the occasions on which he endured temptation,” Bonaventura, Vit. Christi. See Luk_22:28; Heb_4:15. We may however infer from the Gospels that henceforth His temptations were rather the negative ones caused by suffering, than the positive ones caused by allurement. Ullmann, p. 30. See Mat_27:40 (like the first temptation); Joh_7:3-4 (analogous to the second in St Matthew’s order); Joh_7:15 (like the third); Van Oosterzee. See too Luk_22:3; Luk_22:53; Mat_16:22; Joh_14:30; Joh_8:44.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv13–24 (13) When the devil had ended all the temptation.—Better,…
(13) When the devil had ended all the temptation.—Better, had completed every kind of temptation. The three trials were each typical in character, and taken together they made up the cycle of those to which our Lord’s human nature was then open.
For a season.—Till a [convenient] season—i.e., till the close of the great work, the time of the power of darkness (Luk_22:53), when the prince of this world again came (Joh_14:30), and, trying then the power of suffering, as he had before tried the allurement of the world, found that he was foiled in the latter temptation as he had been in the earlier.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24 And when the devil had ended all the temptation.…
And when the devil had ended all the temptation. "Thou Spirit, who ledd"st this glorious eremite Into the desert, his victorious field, Against the spiritual foe, and brought"st him thence By proof the undoubted Son of God. (Milton.)
St. Matthew closes the story of the "victorious field" by telling us how, when every hellish suggestion had been made and repelled, the wearied and exhausted Jesus was visited and refreshed by the visible ministry of angels. The words of the Greek original translated "all the temptation" would be more accurately rendered by "every kind of temptation." The three great temptations, related by two of the evangelists in detail, are very varied and comprehensive in character, and appeal to most of the human passions and desires; but from the words with which St. Luke began his recital, "being forty days tempted of the devil," it is clear that Jesus was incessantly tempted the whole time by hellish whispers and suggestions, perhaps of the same kind, though with varied details, as the three we have recorded for us. Besides the uses of the temptation mystery in the development of the humanity of the blessed Son of God, the great scene has its deep lessons for all sorts and conditions of men in all times. Some eminent expositors would seem to wish to limit the area of the teaching of the temptation, and to regard it as mainly an experience preserved for the guidance of the disciples of the Master. They so say these scholars were, from this scene in the life of the great Teacher, to learn never to use their miraculous power for their personal advantage (first temptation); never to associate with wicked men for the attainment of good ends (second temptation); never to perform a miracle in an ostentatious spirit (third temptation). All this was doubtless contained in the Lord"s story of his awful experience, and the lesson was never forgotten by the twelve and.their own immediate followers. But the instruction was not meant to be confined to the little circle of his own; it was, like the whole of the gospel teaching, intended for all sorts and conditions of men. The common everyday lesson which every child may read in this story of his Master"s trial, is that from the plain appointed path of duty, which very often too is the path of suffering, no persuasion however skillfully worded, no sophistry however plausible, must be sufficient to turn him. He departed from him for a season; more accurately, till a convenient season. It is evident that all through the two years and a half of the public ministry, which succeeded the events just recorded, Jesus was exposed to the various trials and temptations to which suffering mortal flesh is exposed. So Bonaventura, in his "Life of Christ," says, "Many other were the occasions on which he endured temptation." Still there is no doubt but that the "convenient season" here pointedly alluded to referred to that other great epoch of temptation just before the cross, when our Lord prayed in the agony of the garden at the close of his earthly work. There the tempter tried if great suffering was not able to conquer that Sinless One.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv13, 14, 16, 18, 22 Luk_4:9; Luk_4:13
Luk_4:9; Luk_4:13
And he brought Him to Jerusalem, and set Him on a pinnacle of the Temple, and said unto Him, If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down from hence
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It is Satans policy in tempting to run from one extreme to another
Reasons of this policy are--
1.
The avoiding of one extreme gives the soul such a swing, if care be not used to prevent it, that they are cast more than half way upon the other.
2. While men avoid one extreme by running into another, they carry with them such strong impressions of the evil they would avoid, and such fierce prejudices, that it is not an ordinary conviction will bring them right, but they are apt to be confident of the goodness of the way they take, and so are the more bold and fixed in their miscarriage. That as distrust on the one hand, so presumption on the other, is one of his grand designs.
Show what presumption is. It is in the general a confidence without a ground.
1. It is made up of audacity--which is a bold and daring undertaking of a thing--and security.
2. The ground of it is an error of judgment. A blind or a misled judgment doth always nourish it.
3. In its way of working it is directly opposite to distrust, and is a kind of excessive though irregular hope.
1. Then it is presumption, when from external or subordinate means men expect that for which they were never designed nor appointed of God.
2. When men do expect those fruits and effects from anything unto which it is appointed, in neglect or opposition to the supreme cause, without whose concurrent influence they cannot reach their proper ends--that is, our hopes are wholly centred upon means, when in the meantime our eye is not upon God.
3. It is a presumption to expect things above the reach of our present state and condition.
4. When men expect things contrary to the rules that God hath set for His dispensations of mercy, they boldly presume upon His will.
5. It is also a presumption to expect any mercy, though common and usual, without the ordinary means by which God in providence hath settled the usual dispensations of such favours.
6. When ordinary or extraordinary mercies are expected for an unlawful end.
Having thus proved that presumption is one of the great things he aims at, I shall next discover the reasons of his earnestness and industry in his design, which are these--
1. It is a sin very natural, in which he hath the advantage of our own readiness and inclination.
2. As it is easy for Satans attempt, so it is remote from conviction, and not rooted out without great difficulty.
3. The greatness of the sin when it is committed, is another reason of his diligence in the pursuit of it.
4. The dangerous issues and consequences of this way of tinning, do not a little animate Satan to tempt to it. It was no small piece of Satans craft to take this advantage, while the impression of trust in the want of outward means was warm upon the heart of Christ. He hoped thereby the more easily to draw Him to an excess. For he knows that a zealous earnestness to avoid a sin, and to keep to a duty, doth often too much incline us to an extreme, and he well hoped that when Christ had declared Himself so positively to depend upon God, he might have prevailed to have stretched that dependence beyond its due bounds, taking the opportunity of His sway that way, which, as a ship before wind and tide, might soon be over-driven. (R. Gilpin.)
Satan watches the wind
They admire how it comes to pass that their temptations should so suddenly alter, that when Satan seems to be so intent upon one design, he should so quickly change, and urge them presently to a different or contrary thing; but they may know that the devil watcheth the wind, and spreads his sail according to the advantage which ariseth from our answer or repulse. So that if we would but plough with our own heifer, and observe our frame of spirit, we should easily find out this riddle. For as it is in disputings and arguings of men, replies beget new matter for answer, and so do they multiply one another; thus are temptations altered and multiplied, and out of the ashes of one assault repelled, another doth quickly spring up. (R. Gilpin.)
The influence of place in temptation
As long as Noah was in the ark in the midst of the waters, he had in him no presumptuous thought; but sitting under the vine in his vineyard, he was overcome therewith. And just Lot 2Pe_2:8) in Sodom, had no fit time or place to be presumptuous; but when he dwelt in the mountain in security, then he committed incest with his daughters, being made drunk by them. David, so long as he was persecuted by Saul, tossed up and down from post to pillar, had no leisure to be presumptuous; but in the top of his turret, when he was at rest in his palace. (Bishop Andrewes.)
The same devil
But though it be not the same temptation, yet it is the same devil in both places. (Bishop Andrewes.)
Pride seeks the pinnacle
All other sins keep out of the way, as well as they can, but pride is not ashamed to be manifested, nay, it loves to have witnesses of its folly and insolency. (Bishop Hacker.)
Satan loves open sins
This is that itch which Satan hath rubbed upon self-admiring pride, sometime to be gazed upon at one place, sometime at another, by the court, by the theatre, by the congregation assembled to praise God, by the whole city, if it be possible, as it was purposed in this temptation. But the more publication pride makes of itself, the more scandal is given, the more scandal the more guiltiness, and the more guiltiness the greater condemnation. Satan loves these open, these flaming sins, that weak ones may run to them like moths to the light of a candle, and be touched and scorched with coming near them. (Bishop Andrewes.)
The holy Temple defiled
And above all places on earth if he make us his instruments to defile the holy Temple, Gods glory is put to the greatest scandal and reproach. And this is brought to pass so many ways, that it is plain to see there hath been a most witty complotter in the treachery.
1. When any prelate is so puffed up that he thinks himself too great to be a doorkeeper in Gods house, but will be higher than all the Church, and set on the top of the pinnacle, who, sitting in the Temple of God, exalts himself above all that is called God.
2. The temple is defiled by setting up idols in the courts of our heavenly King, even in the midst of thee, O thou sanctuary of the Lord.
3. By offering up unclean sacrifice, either false doctrine, or impious prayers, or superstitious worship, or corrupted sacraments.
4. When men set their foot within the sacred tabernacle with carnal thoughts, with worldly imaginations, with no zeal or attention.
5. To bring any profane work, any secular business within those walls which are consecrated to the name of the Lord. (Bishop Andrewes.)
Satan not discouraged by failure
The manner is, after one hath taken a foil, his courage will fail. The angel would have been gone, when he saw he could not prevail over Jacob (Gen_32:26). But it is not so here with the devil. For when he saw that his first temptation would not prevail he trieth another. (Bishop Andrewes.)
A new assault made out of vanquished temptation
He is not only content to take a foil, but even out of the same thing wherewith he was foiled maketh he matter of a new temptation, a new ball of fire. Out of Christs conquest, he makes a new assault; that is, since he will needs trust, he will set him on trusting; he shall trust as much as he will. As the former tempted him to diffidence, so this shall tempt him to precedence. (Bishop Andrewes)
1. It is a favourite snare of the tempter to take men, ay, Christian men, to pinnacles.
2. It is to tempt God, to do anything wrong on the plea of imagined or intended good to others.
3. Too many make the same mis-use of the Bible that the devil did.
4. The believer must appropriate to himself the Bible promises and commandments.
5. Obedience must be kept abidingly in mind.
6. We must never sunder means from ends.
7. Let the tempted realize the great protecting hands. (A. B.Grosart.)
A pinnacle of the Temple
The pinnacle is properly the wing of the temple-buildings, not of the main building itself. The pinnacle has been supposed to be the pediment of the three-storied royal hall, which Herod had erected at the southern corner of the temple area, and which reached to the mouth of the Tyropoeon, and stood high above the ravine of Cedron, where it turns into the Valley of Hinnom. Josephus thus describes it. It was an astonishing work of art, the like of which was nowhere else to be seen, for the valley was so deep, that when any one standing on the top looked down into it, he lost his head. Above this, Herod erected a portico of four storeys of pillars, of such extraordinary height, that when any one ascended to the parapet, so as to look down from the roof on the entire depth of building and natural precipice, he stood a chance of becoming giddy before his eyes reached the bottom of the abyss. The parapet here, no doubt, formed a low pediment, such as is common to the gables of Grecian temples. On the top of this pediment stood Jesus, with Satan by Him. A great commotion, and, indeed, a riot was caused in Jerusalem, by the erection of a golden Roman eagle, on the Temple gate, as crowning the pediment, by Herod the Great, about 4 B.C. The eagle was torn down and broken in pieces by the rioters. It was a symbol both of Roman power and of Jupiter, the king of the gods. Now--perhaps in covert reference to this incident-Satan plants the Lord on the apex of the pediment of Herods great four-storied hall, or, possibly on the entrance gate, on the very pedestal from which the golden eagle had been thrown down. (S. Baring-Gould, M. A.)
The devil where least expected
During the past week I had a nosegay of flowers brought me. I handled them, and they passed through the hands of my household. They had been in the house four-and-twenty hours, when, going into the room where they were, I observed a serpent issuing from among the flowers. When I approached it darted about the room, shooting out its poisoned fangs. I thought, How like the old serpent the devil, coming to us hidden in those beautiful flowers, where we least expected to find anything so dangerous! (J. Stuchbery.)
Christ in the pinnacle
Looking down from that dizzy height, He could see the marble pavement and the people walking upon it. Cast Thyself down from hence. He could have done it. Sustained by angel hands, kept secure by His own inherent power, He could have descended without harm into the midst of the people. No doubt it would have brought Him great applause from the idle and wonder-mongering crowd, but whose tears would it have wiped away, whose aching heart would it have comforted, whose sickness would it have healed? Never, never, would the Lord of love put forth His power for such a useless, fruitless, purpose as that; and He kept his Divine resources in all their virgin freshness and fulness. He kept them untouched till presently the lepers crossed His path and He could cleanse them, till presently the dying were within His reach and He could lift them into life again, till the broken-hearted were by His side, and He could dry up the fountain of their woe and make their broken hearts to be whole again. (C. Vince.)
Satan busy during spiritual exercises
To the holy city, to the holiest place in the holy city, the Temple, is the Lord Jesus taken by the tempter, and there afresh tempted. Whither then will not the tempter enter? What light-flaming battlement will be not over-leap? My dear friends, we must be vigilant everywhere; at all times, and in all places: in the house of God; at the family altar; within our closets; beside our opened Bible. I would even say that most of all must we watch unto prayer in these holy scenes and seasons. For it is with the roaring lion, who ever goes about seeking whom he may devour, as with the beasts of prey in the forest. I remember once, when camped on the shores of one of the great lakes of America, that in the stillness of the pine-forest, within whose shadows our camp-fire was lit, it was a sight to see the wild beasts stealthily stealing to their watering-places. It so chanced that in the tangled jungle opposite us, there was one of their lurking-places; and as the moonlight streamed its wan radiance over it, I could see the fierce creatures couched behind a shattered pine. Why there? Because from beneath its roots, gushing from out the ferns, was a spring of water. Thither the flocks and herds, came, and just as they lapped their refreshing draught, out sprang at a bound the wehr-wolf or other terrible beast. It is precisely so with us. While the believer is quenching his souls longings and thirstings at the well of salvation, the adversary crouches to make his fatal spring. Alas, alas l that so many of the flock are borne way. (A. B. Grosart, D. D.)
1. The tempter comes a second time with an if. Doubt is to potent a thing to be lightly or readily abandoned.
2. The tempter goes from extreme to extreme. This seems to be a favourite device of the evil one.
3. The tempter is very successful in tempting professing Christians with his If [=since] son thou be of God, cast Thyself beneath. Everyday observation will satisfy that there are two classes who fall before this snare. There is first of all the man who has newly proved the power of the gift of faith to produce absolute trust. Strong in that trust, there is the danger of thinking of and relying more upon the gift than the Giver; and of acting upon the grace in possession as semi-independent, instead of looking to Him who holds all grace in His own hands. Presumption inevitably comes out of that; self-confidence, rashness, high thoughts, and all under the guise of an unquestioning faith. My dear friends, search and see if you are not liable to presume upon your Christian character, and to run risks such as you should else shrink from.
4. The tempter seeks first to lead into sin, and then to justify the sin by Scripture.
5. The tempter can only persuade, never compel. Satan can tempt and persuade us, but he cannot force us to sin, or he cannot cast thee down unless thou cast thyself down. (A. B. Grosart, D. D.)
What was the evil in this suggested act?
It was twofold, evil alike on the Godward and on the manward side.
1. In the first aspect it meant that God should be forced to do for Him what He had before refused to do for Himself--make Him an object of supernatural care, exempted from obedience to natural law, a child of miracle, exceptional in His very physical relations to God and Nature.
2. In the second aspect it meant that He was to be a Son of wonder, clothed with marvels, living a life that struck the senses and dazzled the fancies of the poor vulgar crowd. In the one case it had been fatal to Himself, in the other, to His mission. Special as were His relations to God, He did not presume on these, but, with Divine self-command, lived, though the supernatural Son, like the natural child of the Eternal Father. His human life was as real as it was ideal. The Divine did not supersede the human, nor seek to transcend its limits, physical and spiritual. And His fidelity to our nature has been its pre-eminent blessing. No man who knows the spirit of Christ will presume either on the providence or the mercy of God, because certain that there remains, even in their highest achievements, the dutiful servants of Divine wisdom and righteousness. He who came to show us the Father, showed Him not as a visible guardian, not as an arbitrary, mechanical providence, but as an invisible presence about our spirits, about our ways, source of our holiest thoughts, our tenderest feelings, our wisest actions. The Only-begotten lived as one of many brethren, though as the only one conscious of His Sonship. And, perhaps, His self-sacrifice reached here its sublimest point. He would not, and He did not, tempt the Lord His God, but lived His beautiful and perfect life within the terms of the human, yet penetrated and possessed by the Divine. (A. M. Fairbairn, D. D.)
The temptation to presumption
If God is to be so trusted, try Him. Show thyself His darling. Here is the word itself for it. Take Him at His word. Again, with a written word, the Lord meets him. And He does not quote Scripture for logical purposes--to confute Satan intellectually, but as given even Satan the reason of His conduct. If the Father told Him to cast Himself down, that moment the pinnacle pointed naked to the sky. If the devil threw Him down, let God send His angels; or, if better, allow Him to be dashed in pieces in the valley below. But never will He forestall the Divine will. The Father shall order what comes next. The Son will obey. In the path of His work He will turn aside for no stone. There let the angels bear Him in their hands if need be. But He will not choose the path because there is a stone in it. He will not choose at all. He will go where the Spirit leads him. (George Macdonald, LL. D.)
The temptation of display
I. THE ATTACK.
1. It was a temptation to presumption.
2. The object o! this presumption was display.
3. The temptation was presented with an excuse in Scripture.
II. THE REPULSE.
1. Our Lord again quotes Scripture, partly
(a) for the same reason as formerly, for that which is good when rightly handled must not be abandoned because evil persons abuse it; and partly
(b) because Scripture is best interpreted and balanced by Scripture.
2. The words quoted by our Lord show that He regarded the act of presumption suggested by Satan as an insult to God. (W. F. Adeney, M. A.)
Illustrations
Walker was treated less respectfully. William thought him a busybody, who had been properly punished for running into danger without any call of duty, and expressed that feeling, with characteristic bluntness on the field of battle. Sir, said an attendant, the Bishop of Derry has been killed by a shot at the ford. What took him there? growled the king. (Macaulays History of England.)
Wellington, of an officer killed: What business had he lurking there? Shall not mention him in my despatch.
Trusting and tempting providence
You may rely upon God for protection, solace, help, but not if you are foolhardy. No miracle will do for you what you can do for yourself. Jesus might have come down by the staircase; there was no need to get down the other way--tempt providence, and providence will fail you to a certainty. If you are idle and feckless, no philosophers stone will turn your dross into gold. If you have weak lungs and expose yourself recklessly to chill, Gods icy wind will slay you in spite of your prayers. If you neglect the laws of health and live fast, you will soon sink from the heaven of health into the hell of disease. If, from the pinnacle of desire, you leap into the pit of lust, you shall die mangled. If, from the pinnacle of greed, you plunge into the gulf of peculation, you fall crushed. The moral order of the universe will not be suspended for you--Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. (H. R.Haweis, M. A.)
Pinnacle of the Temple
Some places are as dangerous for our souls as the pinnacle of the Temple was for the body. (D. Dyke.)
Cast Thyself down from hence
Humility employed in the service of pride
That He might fall down bodily, and be proud spiritually, and so he thrust together a frivolous presumption, and a dangerous descension. How much is humility abused when pride will wear the colours of that great virtue to deceive the world. There was gross ambition in Absaloms stooping to steal the hearts of the people. As a kite will sweep the earth with his wings, that he may truss the prey in his talons, and fly aloft to devour it, so all the crouches and submissions which an ambitious man makes are to get somewhat what he seeks for, and to clamber to promotion. This is observed, because Satan impels Christ to cast Himself down, not for true humilitys sake, but upon vainglory to flutter in the air, that all Jerusalem might take notice how precious He was to the care and custody of all the angels. (Bishop Hacket.)
Election no reason for presumption
I see now who is the author of that fallacy which, I fear, hath cost many a soul the loss of eternal life, that such as assure themselves they are elect ones, they are the sons of God, may make bold with their Fathers mercy, may rely upon it, and now and then transgress His commandments for their pleasure, or profit, or some other fleshly consideration; there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus; God sees no sin in the righteous-though they fall they shall rise again; and many more such deluding axioms as they apply them, which I beseech you return back again to hell with him that invented them. (Bishop Hacket.)
Trusting too much
As, seeing the water of distrust will not extinguish His faith, but that He would trust in God, he endeavoureth now by Scriptures (that magnify the providence of God, and the confidence we are to put in Him) to set Him as far gone in the other extreme, by presuming or trusting too much, that so the fire, which before he would have quenched, may now so flame out as not to keep itself within the chimney, but to set the whole house on fire. (Bishop Andrewes.)
Vice coloured with virtue
The devil sees that against Gods children oftentimes he can have no other advantage, than that which they had against Daniel (Dan_6:1-28.) in the law of his God, in the graces of Gods Spirit, and therefore he dyes his bad clothes in good colours, and paints the foul faces of sin with the colours of graces and virtues to deceive us; as here he presents presumption to Christ under the colour and in the habit of faith; and so now covetousness, of frugality and good husbandry; drunkenness and carousing of healths, of good fellowship; sottish sloth, of quietness (Ecc_4:3), unlawful sports both in regard of the nature of the games, as dice. What need have we not to be carried away with everything that hath a show of goodness, or of indifferency, but to bring these painted strumpets of the devil to the light, yea, and to the heat of the Word of God, and then their painting shall melt away, and we shall see their beauty came only out of the devils box? (D. Dyke.)
For it is written, He shall give His angels charge over thee
Satan quoting the Psalms
A man would have thought Satan would have skipped the Book of the Psalms though he had searched over all the Scripture beside. It is the volume of joy, of consolation, of alacrity, the very songs of angels. Is any man merry, let him sing psalms, says St. James. Is there any use of that sweet harmony for him that lives in perpetual torment? (Bishop Hacket.)
Scripture not defiled by Satanic uses
I will not put myself to the task to go any further in this reckoning; for all schisms and heresies, and almost all sins, will shroud under the patronage of the Word of God. Yet such is the pureness of that fountain, that it is not puddled, though dirty swine do wallow in it; nay, though the devil himself run headlong into it, as he did into the sea. Here he tumbles about in this psalm to cast dirt upon it, yet the psalm is no whit less sacred and venerable than it was before. (Ibid.)
Misuse of Scripture no argument against its use
It is no disgrace nor disparagement to the Scriptures to proceed from Satan, nor any occasion to make us leave cur hold; for Christ answereth again, and striketh with the same weapon wherewith He was stricken, showing us that it is lawful to use a text well, against them that do abuse a text; and if Christs example be our precedent, then we may allege Scripture against depraved Scripture. For the bee may gather honey on the same stalk that the spider doth poison. And though a swashbuckler kill a man with his weapon, yet a soldier may lawfully knit a sword to his side; and though there be many piracies committed on the sea, yet may the merchants traffic; or though some surfeit by gluttony, yet may others use their temperate diet. And if the devil change himself into an angel of light, shall therefore the angels lose their light?
Misquoted Scripture
In the ways all is safe. Out of the ways all is perilous.
Satanic use of Scripture
I shall show to what base designs he makes it subserve.
1. He useth this artifice to beget and propagate erroneous doctrines. Hence no opinion is so vile, but pretends to Scripture as its patron.
2. He makes abused Scripture to encourage sinful actions.
3. By this imitation of the commands and promises of God, he doth strangely engage such as he can thus delude unto desperate undertakings.
4. He sometimes procures groundless peace and assurance in the hearts of careless ones by Scripture misapplied. Lastly: This way of Satans setting home scriptures proves sadly effectual to beget or heighten the inward distresses and fears of the children of God. It is a wonder to hear some dispute against themselves, so nimble they be to object a scripture against their peace, above their reading or ability, that you would easily conclude there is one at hand that prompts them, and suggests these things to their own prejudice. And sometime a scripture will be set so cross or edgeway to their good and comfort, that many pleadings, much time, prayers, and discourses cannot remove it. I have known some that have seriously professed scriptures have been thrown into their hearts like arrows, and have with such violence fixed a false apprehension upon their minds, as that God had cut them off, that they were reprobate, damned, &c., that they have borne the tedious, restless affrightments of it for many days, and yet the thing itself, as well as the issue of it, doth declare that this was not the fruit of the Spirit of God, which is a spirit of truth, and cannot suggest a falsehood, but of Satan, who hath been a liar from the beginning. (R. Gilpin.)
Scripture falsely cited
Another point of Satans unfaithful dealing with Scripture is his false citation of it. It is nothing with him to alter, change, or leave out such a part as may make against him. If he urge promises upon men, in order to their security and negligence, he conceals the condition of them, and banisheth the threatening far from their minds, representing the mercy of God in a false glass, as if He had promised to save and bring to heaven every man upon the common and easy terms of being called a Christian. If it be his purpose to disquiet the hearts of Gods children, to promote their fears, or to lead them to despair, then he sets home the commands and threatenings, but hides the promises that might relieve them, and, which is remarkable, he hath so puzzled some by setting on their hearts a piece of Scripture, that when the next words, or next verse, might have eased them of their fears, and answered the sad objections which they raised against themselves from thence, as if their eyes had been holden, or as if a mist had been cast over them, they have not for a long time been able to consider the relief which they might have had. This hiding of Scripture from their eyes, setting aside what God may do for the just chastisement of His childrens folly, is effected by the strong impression which Satan sets upon their hearts, and by holding their minds down to a fixed meditation of the dreadful inferences which he presents to them from thence, not suffering them to divert their thoughts by his incessant clamours against them. (R. Gilpin.)
The Word of God
Now, brethren, I would have you remember two things throughout, in our Lords use of Scripture, in this sore contest. First: As towards Himself and His own human, and therefore, it might be supposed, infirm heart. It is, you see, the sole argument which He uses, the sole guide which He takes, the sole source of strength on which He throws Himself. You see nothing added to it, no consideration from any other quarter, of reason, or convenience, or ultimate gain; no calculations of any kind called in to give it fresh power, or an influence not properly its own. It is thrust boldly, nakedly, solitarily forward, by its own strength alone sustained. Secondly: It is clearly implied that the powerful spirit who was tempting Him, was quite as well aware as He Himself that Gods word was immutable and unconquerable; and that it contained within itself all that faith needed to resist his utmost assaults. He knew full well that all spiritual strength and comfort was contained in it; nay, a clothing of the soul that rested on it with the very power of Him who spake it in His truth and holiness, and victory to tread all sin and temptation under foot. With all his subtlety, therefore, and devices of a bad wisdom, he has nothing to reply to the bold and straightforward declaration of Gods will. He is struck dumb. It seems, after this, useless before Christians, to give any reasons why it should be so, seeing that we have such a witness to it; but one or two immediately occur to every thoughtful person, which I will just suggest.
1. Almighty God is the very truth itself, and it is no more possible for Him to utter what is false than for the glorious and blessed sun to shoot forth darkness instead of light.
2. He is all-powerful, as well as all true, and therefore, if He be bent upon executing His will, whatever it be, it is impossible to resist it.
3. He is all good, and gracious, and loving, and hath poured the riches of His mercy into the book which He has given unto us; and so far from dreading these perfections of His nature, which make all that He has said unchangeable, and grieving that it cannot be blotted out--herein is our joy, as sons of God by adoption and grace, that it is written that heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one tittle of that blessed writing! And now, only turn for a moment to what it is in this temptation of Satan of which our Lord affirmed that it was the Word of God, and found strength whereby, in the hour of His great need, to vanquish the tempter, and bring down angels out of heaven to minister to Him! For you may be sure, that the sinless Lamb of God, who took our nature upon Him, that we might be raised to the purity of His, seeing that He was flesh and blood in all things, sin only excepted, hath recorded His own temptations, because He knew full well, by the wisdom that was in Him, that the very same would assault us!
Look well, dear brethren, to this!
1. Though it be true, that we must all labour in the station to which God has called us, and by the sweat of our brow must eat bread, yet that is not the first thing; that is not the great, the one thing needful. The kingdom of God is not meat, or drink, but righteousness, and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. My meat, saith our Lord, and therefore ours, is to do the will of My Father which is in heaven! Thou shalt not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow I they toil not, neither do they spin I and yet your heavenly Father clotheth them I Shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? In one word, It is written, and it cannot be changed. Again--look at this: Do you never tempt the Lord your God? that is, presume upon His aiding and protecting you, where He has not promised to do so, but the contrary, and so bring a curse upon the soul, and not a blessing I But, you may say, can we trust God too much P or throw our whole souls with too unreserved a love and confidence upon His fatherly care? But to presume on His love when our heart is elsewhere, and when we refuse to obey His evident commandments, is death to us! Again, it is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Thirdly: Do we fall down and worship Satan? It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve! Finally: Before we part, let me once more impress upon you, that all this, and much more of the like import, is written, and that to tell you so is the same thing as to tell you that it will all come to pass, as sure as man is sinful and ignorant, and God wise, holy, and true. And in more than one sense it is thus written: for first of all--you find it in the holy book! There it is, and fire cannot burn it out, nor water wash it out, nor all the wishes and struggles of ungodly men make it less, even by a single letter. It is written, therefore, not only in a book, but in the eternal counsels of God, out of the depths of which, in the fulness of time, it hath all issued forth to us. It has been written from everlasting to everlasting, that thus it shall be. But there is one more book, dear brethren, in which this blessed, and eternal, and unchangeable word must be written, if we would be the better or the more blessed for it. In our own hearts--in our souls, in the fleshly tablets within us, and not on stone tables, or paper books, must the Word of God be engraven by the Spirit. So long as it remains an outward thing, merely spoken or merely written, it is only condemnation; it hath a sword in its hand, and killeth. (J. Garbett, M. A.)
The devil quoting Scripture
The failure of the tempter has not deterred mankind from venturing on the same appeal, with no very unlike design. Among the crowd of pilgrims who throng the pages of his allegory, Bunyan depicts one Mr. Selfwill, who holds that a man may follow the vices as well as the virtues of pilgrims. But what ground has he for so saying? is Mr. Greathearts query. And old Mr. Honesty replies: Why, he said he had Scripture for his warrant.
The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose;
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the core.
Such is Antonios stricture on Shylocks appeal to Jacobs practice; and there is a parallel passage to it in the next act, where Bassanio is the speaker:--
In religion,
What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it, with a text
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament.
Shakespeare embodies in Richard of Gloucester a type of the political intriguer; as where the usurper thus answers the gulled associates who urge him to be avenged on the opposite faction:--
But then I sigh, and with a piece of Scripture
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil.
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends, stolen forth of holy writ;
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
An unmitigated scoundrel in one of Mr. Dickenss books is represented as openly grudging his old father the scant remnant of his days (on the ground that Three-score and tens the Bible-mark); whereupon the author interposes this parenthetical comment: Is any one surprised at Mr. Jonas making such a reference to such a book for such a purpose? Does any one doubt the old saw that the devil quotes Scripture for his own ends? If he will take the trouble to look about him, he may find a greater number of confirmations of the fact in the occurrences of a single day than the steam-gun can discharge balls in a minute. (F. Jacox.)
The religious devil
But what is this I see? Satan himself with a Bible under his arm, with a text in his mouth? No devil is so dangerous as the religious devil. So writes Bishop Hall, speaking of the temptation of Christ. There are two classes of devils, the religious and the irreligious--both in reality irreligious--and the former more so than the latter; but these make no show or pretence of religion, whereas those do. St. Paul had to contend with them. Speaking of false apostles, he wrote: And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light, &c. The religious devil has often been enthroned as the head of the Church on earth; he has at one time or another enjoyed the emoluments of every bishopric in Europe; there is scarcely a monastery of which he has not been abbot; there are not many pulpits from which he has not preached, for he is to be found in every denomination. A religious devil has been known to join a Church, and go from one Church to another, from one denomination to another, in order to secure customers in the congregation. (H. S. Brown.)
Satans many disguises
No player hath so many several dresses to come in upon the stage as the devil hath forms of temptation; but he is most dangerous when he appears in Samuels mantle, and silvers his foul tongue with fair language. (Gurnall.)
The Word of God the end of controversy
To dispatch this out of hand, the misconstruing the Word of God is the beginning of all strife; the true allegation of it is the end of a controversy. (Bishop Hacket.)
Satan Gods ape
That the Scripture is alleged in a perverse apish imitation, because Christ had alleged Scripture before. Thus hath the devil always been Gods ape, as in sacrifices, washings, tithes, priests, altars, oracles of the heathen, all which he did apishly imitate, and counterfeit the like to those in the Church of God, thinking by this means to disgrace the ordinances of God. (D. Dyke.)
The abuse of Scripture
That the abuse of the Scriptures must not take away the use of it. Christ doth not give over alleging Scripture because the devil abused it. The honest traveller doth so much the more wear his weapon and his sword because the thief useth the same weapon. (D. Dyke.)
And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God
Faith distinguished from presumption
Thou shalt not tempt, &e. Is there any law which can be laid down which will serve in all cases to distinguish faith from presumption, which will warn us when we are no longer honouring God by our trust, but dishonouring Him by our unbelief?
There is, and it is as follows
The moment trust in God presumes to break any one, even the least, of the laws of God, and then expects God to save it from the consequences of its disobedience, it is not trust, but unbelief; it is not faith, but presumption; it is not honouring, it is tempting, God. (G. S. Barrett, B.A.)
Our Lords quotations from the Scriptures
The words of all the three answers to the tempter come from two chapters of Deuteronomy, one of which (chapter 6.) supplied one of the passages for the phylacteries or frontiers worn by devout Jews. The fact is in every way suggestive. A prominence was thus given to that portion of the book which made it an essential part of the education of every Israelite, The words which our Lord now uses had, we must believe, been familiar to Him from His childhood, and He had read their meaning rightly. With them He may have sustained the faith of others in the struggles of the Nazareth home with poverty and want. And now He finds in them a truth which belongs to His high calling as well as to His life of lowliness. (Dean Plumptre.)
The inductive study of the Scriptures
What the Saviour did here was to fill out and complete the interpretation of the passage which Satan had repeated, and He did that by showing from various passages the conditions within which alone the former could be rationally and intelligently accepted. Now the procedure of the Lord in this instance plainly implies that one portion or saying of Scripture is to be read in connection with all other portions of it, and is to be understood and interpreted only in that sense which is in harmony with every other utterance of the sacred oracles. What Nature is to the physical philosopher, Scripture is to the theologian. In prosecuting a systematic examination of the Scriptures there are three things in reference to which we must be always on our guard.
1. We must see to it that all the passages brought together have a real bearing on the subject in hand.
2. We must see to it that we give to each passage its own legitimate weight--no more, no less.
3. We must see to it that our induction of passages is complete. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Spiritual acuteness
There is a story of a limner, that to show his art, drew a white line so small that it could hardly be discerned; another, to show that he could excel him, drew a black line through the middle of it. It required an acute sight to detect either. But our Saviour at first view immediately discerned the black line of temptation to run through the plausible advice that Satan gave Him. (White.)
Tempting God
And surely one principal and notorious offence is committed when a man exposeth his life to unnecessary dangers, upon an ill-grounded confidence that God will bring him off with safety.
2. The Lord is tempted when we will not believe Him, unless we see signs and wonders, and provoke Him to let us see some print of His omnipotence, or we will fall out, and trust Him no more.
3. There is another crooked branch, much like unto the former, growing out of the same root; not simply by declining natural means, but by declining all means; having no calling, using no labour, cashiering all providence, and yet expecting to live and thrive as well as they that eat the bread of carefulness by the sweat of their brows.
4. Then they shall stand for the fourth, that make holy vows, and bind themselves in a perpetual obligation, where God hath given no promise of assistance, that they shall be able to perform them.
5. Fifthly, to use such things again, which either always or for the most part have been unto us an occasion of sinning, is to tempt the Lord, whether He will let those things prevail against our souls which so often have proved unto us an occasion of falling.
6. And sixthly, this smells of a most audacious spirit, provoking wrath, and urging, the patient God to indignation, when you make slight of all the terrors and miacies in the law, as if they were high words; but do what you will they shall never fall upon you. This was the first imposture that Satan put upon our first parents. (Bishop Hacket.)
Tempting Providence
To go into any peril, however great, at the call of duty, trusting that God will protect, is faith. To go into any peril, when there is no call of duty, trusting that God will protect, is presumption. Every one can see that, as a general principle, presumption is not faith. Both are trust in God; but faith is reasonable trust, presumption is unreasonable trust. Faith is trusting God, where He has told us and because He has told us to trust Him. Presumption is trusting that God will do what would suit us, though He has never said He would. I know that the two trusts shade off into each other; and it is difficult, in some cases, to say whether to trust that God will provide, will order, will protect, is faith or presumption. Many virtues have a black shadow that keeps near them, a corresponding vice into which they melt by imperceptible gradations. Who will say exactly where courage ends and foolhardiness begins; where tact ends and trickery begins? But then it is just here that each mans own conscience and common sense must guide him. We read in the history of that same great king who has already been named of a case in which the tempting of Gods providence brought instant and awful consequence. During a battle in Flanders, King William was giving his orders under a shower of bullets, when he saw with surprise and anger among the officers of his staff, one Michael Godfrey, a mercantile man, the Deputy-Governor of the Bank of England. A foolhardy curiosity to see real war had brought him there. The king said, sharply, Sir, you ought not to run these hazards; you are not a soldier; you can be of no use to us here. Sir, answered Godfrey, I run no more hazard than your Majesty. Not so, said William; I am where it is my duty to be; and I may without presumption commit my life to Gods keeping; but you The sentence was never finished; at that moment a cannon-ball laid Godfrey dead at the kings feet. I do not venture to talk of judgments. But here the mans death was beyond all question the consequence of his temerity. Now that we have thought of the general truth set forth in the text, I wish to show you its application to certain particular cases, with which we are all quite familiar.
I. The text tells us, if it tells us anything, THAT WE OUGHT NOT, NEEDLESSLY, TO GO IN THE WAY OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE. Well, there are some people who, if they would not fail of their duty, must just trust in Gods providence, and run that risk. This is part of their vocation; to this they are called of God. To them the promise is, that His angels will keep them; for here is their way, the way God has set them; and in that way God has said He will protect His people, heartily doing their appointed work. The doctor, fulfilling his noble calling; the nurse; the minister. It is no tempting of Providence if such as have been named be near the sick, even where sickness is most malignant. But there it ends. To go, when you are not needed; when you can do no good; when you may carry away fatal infection to others: that is doing what Christ in my text forbids.
II. There is another familiar instance in which my text is disregarded, which one constantly hears named as a singular folly and eccentricity, but which, in the light of the word of our Master, looks something more serious than folly. There are many men, as we all know, whose business, and daily work, lies upon the sea, fishermen and sailors; and there are others also who are many times called to be upon the sea. Now, God has made us so, and made the waters so, that if we fall into deep water and sink beneath its surface, we must soon die; two minutes, and, as a rule, life is gone. But God has made us so, and made the waters so, that in two or three weeks we may each acquire a simple art, that needs no machinery, no tools, nothing but the limbs God gave us, and skill to use them, and courage got in their use; and then, this simple art acquired, we may fall into deep water, and be just as safe and as much at our ease as on dry land. Now, strange to say, a great many of those men whose work is on the waters will not take the trouble of learning this simple art, the knowledge of which, the exercise of which for five or six minutes, may some day just decide the question, Whether or not their poor children shall or shall not be left fatherless little paupers.
III. And now let us think of a third case in which the warning in my text should be laid to heart by all of us. THIS IS AS CONCERNS THOUGHT AND FORESIGHT IN THE MATTER OF OUR WORLDLY MEANS; the laying by in prosperous times against the rainy day which may come; the provision to be diligently made by the head of every family, while health and strength last, for the support of wife and children after he is taken away. The Savings Bank and the Life Insurance Company are sacred institutions as much as any institutions can be. It is tempting Providence when a workingman, earning large wages, does not try to lay by something which may be a stay should sickness come, or work fail. He ought to go to the Savings Bank as regularly as he goes to the church. Then it is tempting Providence, in another walk of life, when a professional man, earning a considerable income, spends it all, though knowing it must cease with his life, never caring what is to become of his wife and children if he dies.
IV. Surely it is a tempting of Gods providence IF WE NO NOT TAKE EVERY MEANS TO PREVENT THE CHOLERA FROM COMING, AND TO PREPARE FOR IT SHOULD IT COME. He has put within our reach means that conduce to the health of the community. We know that impure air, and impure water, and filthy dwellings, and drunkenness, are direct invitations to the cholera; and though no authority, however stringent and searching, can compel individuals to be clean and sober, yet an enlightened, efficient magistracy has great power. We know that it is tempting Providence to pray without working, and yet that all our work will go for nothing without Gods blessing sought by prayer. All through my discourse I have been pointing out to you what you are bound, as reasonable creatures, to do for yourselves. Do it; but after all is done you must still pray for Gods blessing on it; you must still trust in His providence. True faith in Him will do its own best as though it could do all; and then remember that without His blessing it can do nothing. That is our way, and by Gods grace we shall go on in it. By Gods grace. (A. H. K. Boyd, D. D.)
Presumption
1. In a way of distrust.
(1) Some will not believe the gospel except they see a miracle or hear an oracle. Christ representeth their thoughts (Luk_16:30).
(2) Some will not believe Gods providence, but make question of His power and goodness, and care over us and our welfare, when He hath given us sufficient proof thereof.
(3) Some will not be satisfied as to their spiritual estate without some sensible proof or such kind of assurance as God usually vouchsafeth not to His people.
2. In a way of presumption; so we tempt God when, without any warrant, we presume of Gods power and providence.
(1) When without call we rush into any danger, or throw ourselves into it, with an expectation God will fetch us off again.
(2) When we undertake things for which we are not fitted and prepared, either habitually or actually, as to speak largely without meditation.
The heinousness of the sin.
1. Because it is a great arrogancy when we seek thus to subject the Lord to our direction, will, and carnal affections.
2. It is great unbelief, or a calling into question Gods power, mercy, and goodness to us.
3. It looseneth the bonds of all obedience, because we set up new laws of commerce between God and us; for when we suspect Gods fidelity to us, unless He do such things as we fancy, we suspect our fidelity to Him.
4. It is wantonness, rather than want, puts us upon tempting of God.
5. It argues impatiency--They soon forgat His works; they waited not for His counsel, but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert (Psa_106:13-14).
6. The greatness of the sin is seen by the punishments of it. One is mentioned--Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents (1Co_10:9). (T. Manton, D. D.)
He departed from Him for a season
The devil leaveth Him
He had run out his line, and tried all his strength, our Saviour stood it out till His enemy tilted the very dregs of his gall, and drew them out. He that undertakes an ill cause cannot except, but the hearing of it was very fair, if he may plead out his matter till he can say no more; so the tempter cannot say he was cut off before he came to a period, he was provided of better arguments, but he was stopped from proceeding, he could not make these cavils for shame, for his departure was not commanded until he ended all his temptation. (Bishop Hacket.)
Satan ashamed
Another reason why he fled from the presence of Christ is, he was so beaten out of all falsehoods and inventions by the evidence of truth, that he was ashamed to appear any longer before the face of the Conqueror. (Bishop Hacket.)
Breathing time
The use of it shall come home to ourselves thus: The Lord sometimes takes off our foe from us and gives us breathing time after temptations, it is but for a season, not to flatter ourselves with quietness and security, but to repair our ruins to keep out the batteries that will ensue. It is but a refreshing after the fit of an ague, the sick day is coming again. Like a calm upon the sea, while a sweet gale blows what sensible man will not have all things ready for a tempest. Remember the parable, Luk_11:1-54. And what the unclean spirit said, I will return into my house from whence I came. (Bishop Hacket.)
A feigned departure
A fox will stretch himself for dead that poultry may come into his reach and never fear him; yet if they do stalk towards him, they shall find to their cost he is not past doing mischief. So the tempter will give back, as if he were fled for ever, but he departs only for a more seasonable opportunity, and will return again with seven spirits worse than himself, when you are worse prepared. (Bishop Hacket.)
The life of temptation
The circle of attack had been exhausted. All possible temptation had been summed up, and had failed. Creation, providence, redemption, had each furnished the ground of attack. Body, soul, and spirit had each been assailed. But in vain. The triumphant Lord had been tempted in all points, like as we are, yet without sin. But the words which immediately follow are of dark and ominous significance: He departed from Him for a season. What do these words mean? To what further and future conflicts do they point? Can we discover in the after narrative of the Gospels any light on these mysterious words? Yes, four or five times at least in our Lords after-life did specific temptation occur.
1. The first of these renewed assaults occurs in Joh_6:15. The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand had just taken place and had made a profound impression on the multitude. They resolved at once to proclaim Jesus as their Messianic King. Once more the former temptation was repeated. How did Christ meet it? Withdrew into a mountain to pray.
2. A little later on a still more remarkable repetition of the same temptation in which the tempter was none other than one of Christs own disciples, is recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. Christ had been unfolding to His disciples, how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things, &c. Mat_16:21, &c.). Simon Peter took Him, and began to rebuke Him, saying, Be it far from Thee, Lord. In these words another than Peter had spoken to Christ. Satan had come again. The Lord turned and said unto Peter, almost repeating the very words He had spoken to Satan, Get thee behind Me, Satan, &e. And then follow the words, so solemn and piercing, which told the disciples that the only way to the kingdom of God on earth is the way of the cross: Whosoever would save his life, &c.
3. The third recurrence of this temptation took place nearly at the close of Christs earthly life, and just before the anguish of Gethsemane. Multitude crying Hosanna (Mar_11:9-10). Once more the earthly crown seemed within our Lords grasp. The conflict, however, did not fully begin until the day but one after this triumphal entry. Certain Greeks had desired to see Jesus. In them Christ sees the first fruits of His redeeming work among the Gentiles. The hour is come, He says, that the Son of Man should be glorified. But the mention of His own glorification at once suggests the dark and sorrowful way through which alone it could be reached. For one moment there was a human shrinking from the cup. Father, He cried, save Me from this hour. The next words check the natural shrinking--But for this cause came I unto this hour. And the answer quickly came. Voice from heaven spake of which we only read at the great crises of His life. The victory was once more won, and with new and triumphant joy Jesus cries, Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out, &c.
4. One final crisis in the life of Jesus is recorded in the Gospels. Hitherto each successive assault had been beaten back, and now the time of conflict was drawing to a close. Gethsemane still intervened between the struggle in the upper room and the crucifixion, and it is in Gethsemane that the last conflict takes place. The last damning act of ingratitude is consummated in the traitors kiss, but as Jesus is betrayed into the hands of men, the last words He utters in the garden disclose the presence of a vaster hostility than even the hatred of the son of perdition: This is your hour, and the power of darkness, &c. (Luk_22:53).
5. Possibly during the crucifixion there was a recurrence of another of these three wilderness temptations. The very words that Satan used challenging Christ to prove His Divine Sonship by a miracle, are again heard in the scornful mockery of the crowd beneath the cross, If Thou art the Son of God, come down from the cross (Mat_27:42). But Christs triumph in the wilderness over Satan was only augmented in the voluntary obedience of the eternal Son to death, even the death of the cross. He had come to save others, and Himself He would not save.
6. It is impossible to believe that the instances of temptations which we have been considering were all the temptations which Christ endured subsequently to His temptation in the wilderness. His life, from first to last, was a tempted life. Was there no temptation to our Lord
(1) in the poverty of His earthly life?
(2) in the hopeless indifference and deadness of the people?
(3) in the activities of His public life--activities so incessant that we read that there was not, at one time, leisure so much as to eat?
7. The life of temptation was also a life of uninterrupted victory. It is in this light that the sinlessness of Jesus becomes amazing. It is idle to imagine that it is possible to get rid of the supernatural in the Gospels by blotting out the miracles wrought by Jesus. The miracle of Jesus remains--the miracle of a will ceaselessly assaulted, but as ceaselessly victorious; the miracle of a goodness touching, like the sunlight, the darkest and most festering pollutions of this world and remaining as untainted as the sunlight by contact with impurity. (G. S. Barrett, B. A.)
How to vanquish temptation
In his charge to the newly-ordained ministers Dr. Pope, when ex-President, referred to a certain teacher of the Church who, on one occasion, asked his pupils by what means they sought to vanquish the temptation to worldly lusts, One answered By prayer I Another, By endeavouring to realize what the punishment of transgression will be! The third, however, replied, When the tempter comes I simply say, The place is occupied pass on! The best way to keep tares out of a bushel, says an old writer, is to fill it with wheat.
Christ the devils master
Timms had a very wicked master, whose ridicule of all religion was sad to hear. Coming up to his old servant one flay, he said, Timms, I hear youre converted. Yes, master, praise the Lord Can you tell me whos the devils father? said the master. I dinno as I can, but I can tell e whos is master, and thats the Lord Jesus Christ; He clean licked him when He had the fight with him; and, master, I can tell e whos the devils servant. You be, master, and accordin to my knowledge of him you be servin a bad master. (Sword and Trowel.)
Angelic ministry after temptation
That God maketh use of the ministry of angels in supporting and comforting His afflicted servants. Why doth God make use of the ministry of angels? and how far?
1. To manifest unto them the greatness and glory of His work in the recovering mankind, flint their delight in the love and wisdom of God may be increased.
2. To maintain a society and communion between all the parts of the family of God.
3. To preserve His people from many dangers and casualties, which fall not within the foresight of man, God employeth the watchers, as they are called in the Book of Daniel, Dan_4:13; Dan_4:17, for He is tender of His people, and doth all things by proper means. Now the angels having a larger foresight than we, they are appointed to be guardians.
4. Because they are witnesses of the obedience and fidelity of Christs disciples, and, so far as God permitteth, they cannot but assist them in their conflicts. Thus Paul; We are made a spectacle unto the world, and--angels and to men (1Co_4:9). (T. Manton, D. D.)
Resisting Satan
I. THE KIND OF RESISTANCE.
1. It must not be faint and cold. Some kind of resistance may be made by general and common graces; the light of nature will rise up in defiance of many sins, especially at first, before men have sinned away natural light; or else the resistance at least is in some cold way. But it must be earnest and vehement, as against the enemy of God and our souls.
2. It must be a thorough resistance of all sin, take the little foxes, dash Babylons brats against the stones. Lesser sticks set the great ones on fire. The devil cannot hope to prevail for great things presently.
3. It must not be for a while, but continued; not only to stand out against the first assault, but a long siege.
II. ARGUMENTS TO PERSUADE IT.
1. Because he cannot overcome you without your own consent.
2. The sweetness of victory will recompense the trouble of resistance. It is much more pleasing to deny a temptation than to yield to it; the pleasure of sin is short-lived, but the pleasure of self-denial is eternal.
3. Grace, the more it is tried and exercised, the more it is evidenced to be right and sincere (Rom_5:3-5).
4. Grace is strengthened when it hath stood out against a trial; as a tree shaken with fierce winds is more fruitful, its roots being loosened. Satan is a loser and you a gainer by temptations wherein you have approved your fidelity to God; as a man holdeth a stick the faster when another seeketh to wrest it out of his hands.
5. The more we resist Satan, the greater will our reward be (2Ti_4:7-8). The danger of the battle will increase the joy of the victory, as the dangers of the way make home the sweeter.
7. The Lords grace is promised to him that resisteth. God keepeth us from the evil one, but it is by our watchfulness and resistance; His power maketh it effectual.
III. WHAT ARE THE GRACES THAT ENABLE US IN THIS RESISTANCE? I answer, the three fundamental graces, faith, hope, and love. (T. Manton, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23 14. Returned. After the Temptation. For the events before…
14. Returned. After the Temptation. For the events before the return, see Matt. 4:12. In the power of the Spirit. Full of Divine strength since his victory over Satan. To conquer evil always lifts to a higher power.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v14 Luk_4:14. Returned.—I.e. from Judæa. Galilee.—The main centre of our…
CRITICAL NOTES
Luk_4:14. Returned.—I.e. from Judæa. Galilee.—The main centre of our Lord’s ministry (cf. Act_10:37; Luk_23:5). In the power of the Spirit.—Fresh strength gained from His victory in the wilderness. A fame.—The ground of this is given in Luk_4:15.
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Luk_4:16. And He came to Nazareth.—It is almost certain that this is the visit recorded in Mat_13:53-58 and Mar_6:1-6. These latter inform us that disciples accompanied Him and that He healed a few sick persons. As His custom was.—I.e. the custom of attending the service, not necessarily of reading the lessons.
Luk_4:17. The book.—I.e. the roll. Opened.—Lit. “unrolled.” Found the place.—This seems to imply either that He accidentally lighted upon the passage or specially selected it, and not that it was part of the stated lesson for the day. The present order of lessons in the synagogue service is of a very much later date than this; so that we cannot discover by reference to it what particular Sabbath this was.
Luk_4:18-19.—The words are from Isa_61:1-2, freely quoted from the LXX., supplemented by a passage from Isa_58:6. To heal the brokenhearted.—These words are not found in the best MSS. of the Gospel; omitted in R.V. The acceptable year of the Lord.—I.e. the definite time in which the Lord is gracious.
Luk_4:20. The minister.—I.e. the attendant [chazzan], who brought the sacred volume to the reader and restored it to its place. Sat down.—“They read the Holy Scriptures standing [an attitude of respect], and taught sitting [an attitude of authority]” (Speaker’s Commentary).
Luk_4:21. And He began to say, etc.—This was the theme of His discourse: that He was the Messiah [anointed One] of whom the prophet spoke. It is evident from Luk_4:22 that He expatiated at some length on this topic.
Luk_4:22. Bare Him witness.—By expressing wonder and admiration. Gracious words.—Reference is to the persuasive beauty and not to the ethical character of His words. Is not this Joseph’s son?—This marks a change of feeling—contempt and envy beginning to overcome admiration.
Luk_4:23. Physician, heal Thyself.—The best modern equivalent of this proverb is, “Charity begins at home”: Do something for Thine own countrymen. It may, however, mean, “Do something for Yourself, work a miracle here, and save Yourself from being rejected by us.” Whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum.—There is no record in the Gospels of the miracles wrought at Capernaum to which reference is here made. They must belong to the period indicated in Joh_2:12.
Luk_4:24.—“No prophet is received in his own country, as he is elsewhere; and it is God’s way to send His messengers to strangers, as in the case of Elijah and Elisha, who were sent to be the ministers of God’s mercy to Gentiles” (Speaker’s Commentary).
Luk_4:25. Three years and six months.—So in Jas_5:17; in 1 King Luk_18:1 three years are spoken of, but we do not know the terminus a quo from which they are reckoned; if from the flight of Elijah to Zarephath, the time would correspond with that here specified.
Luk_4:26. Sarepta.—I.e. Zarephath (1Ki_18:9): a village half-way between Tyre and Sidon.
Luk_4:29.—Dean Stanley points out the accuracy of the description given of Nazareth in this place, though at first sight there seems to be inaccuracy. “Most readers probably from these words imagine a town built on the summit of a mountain, from which summit the intended precipitation was to take place. This is not the situation of Nazareth. Yet its position is still in accordance with the narrative. It is built ‘upon,’ that is, on the side of, ‘a mountain’; but the ‘brow’ is not beneath but over the town, and such a cliff as is here implied is to be found in the abrupt face of the limestone rock, about thirty or forty feet high, at the south-west corner of the town, and another at a little farther distance” (Sinai and Palestine, x.).
Luk_4:30.—A miraculous occurrence is evidently implied. The Nazarenes had Him in their grasp; so that the awe with which a dignified demeanour might impress a furious crowd and keep them within bounds would not account for His deliverance on this occasion.
CRITICAL NOTES
Luk_4:15. Mused.—Rather, “reasoned, debated.” The absence of outward splendour occasioned doubts as to whether John could be the promised Messiah; the holiness of his life and the authority with which he spoke suggested to some that he might be the Sent of God. This verse is peculiar to St. Luke but is equivalent to what is said in Joh_1:19-25.
Luk_4:16. Latchet.—I.e. thong or lace. Shoes.—Rather, “sandals.”
Luk_4:17. Fan “The Latin vannus, a great shovel with which corn was thrown up against the wind to separate it from the chaff” (Farrar). Floor.—I.e. “threshing-floor” (R.V.).
Luk_4:18. Preached.—Lit. “evangelised the people”—proclaimed good tidings to them. “With many other exhortations, therefore, preached he good tidings unto the people” (R.V.). The allusion seems to be to the announcement of Christ’s coming or to references of Him, which underlay the Baptist’s teaching.
Luk_4:19.—The imprisonment of John is mentioned by anticipation. Cf. this passage with the fuller notices in Mat_14:3-5; Mar_6:17-20. Philip’s.—Omit Philip (R.V.), “his brother’s wife.” The first husband of Herodias was named Herod, and was a private citizen living in Rome. He was probably called Philip to distinguish him from Herod Antipas (cf. Mar_6:17).
Luk_4:20.—It is interesting to find the same estimate of Herod’s conduct towards John in the history of Josephus (Antt., XVIII. Luk_4:1-4). Prison.—The Jewish historian tells us that the scene of John’s imprisonment was the fortress of Machærus, on the north of the Dead Sea.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Luk_4:14-30
The Acceptable Year of the Lord.—St. Luke’s Gospel, which represents Christ as the Son of man, keeps up the note struck in its accounts of the birth and youth by giving as His first reported discourse this one, in the place “where He had been brought up,” and in the synagogue into which it had been “His custom” from childhood to enter on the Sabbath. It was a natural feeling which drew Him thither, that He might win disciples among the companions of His boyhood. The rumour of His miracles in Capernaum heightened His reputation among His fellow-villagers. One can fancy the curious looks of the congregation, and the busy remembrances filling His heart on that Sabbath. In the discourse He delivered, Christ described the nature of the work He had to do as Messiah, and intimated that the Gentile world would welcome the blessings which the Jews valued so lightly. St. Luke gives a brief outline of both topics of discourse, and describes the effect produced upon the hearers by each.
I. Christ’s conception of His work.—Whether the passage He read was from the usual lesson for the day or not we cannot tell. But it is significant that He stopped in the middle of a verse, and said nothing about “the day of vengeance of our God,” as if He would keep the sweet and radiant side of His mission unshaded by any terror. After reading the words of the prophet He declared at length His claims to be the Messiah. Note
1. How definite and complete His conception of His work is from the first. He knew what He had come to be and do. His aims neither cleared nor grew, but were sun-clear and world-wide from the beginning. That is not the experience of God’s other servants. They are led by undreamed-of ways to an end which they never foresaw. But Jesus had no mist on His future, nor any unconsciousness of His significance. Note
2. Christ’s great theme was always Himself. His demand is not, Believe this or that which I tell, but, Believe in Me; and there in the synagogue, among those who had seen Him as a child, and played with Him in the streets, and known Him as the carpenter, He begins His ministry by proclaiming that the great prophecy is fulfilled in Him. If this is not the speech of incarnate Divinity, it is the boasting of arrogant egotism. He is conscious of possessing the Divine Spirit. It is the permanent effect of the sign at His baptism. Note
3. The view of men’s condition implied. They are poor, captives, blind, bruised. The loving, sad eye is already looking on humanity with clear insight and yearning pity. Mark the calm consciousness of power to grapple with and overcome all these miseries. There stands a humble Galilæan peasant, and singly fronts a world full of wretchedness, blindness, bondage, and bruises, and asserts that power to remedy them all is in Him. Was He right or wrong? If He was right, what and who is He?
II. The effect produced on the hearers.—They “bare Him witness.” Something in their hearts was stirred by the gracious manner as well as substance of His words, and endorsed His claims and drew the hearers towards Him. That inward witness speaks still. Will the testimony within be listened to or stifled? Life and death hang on the answer. The balance wavers for a moment, and then goes the wrong way. A cold jet of criticism is turned on; and when the hearers got to saying, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” (which He was not), all was over. Let us take heed how we deal with the witness of our own hearts to Jesus; for we too are in danger of drowning its voice by noisy prejudices and inclinations.
III. Christ passes to the thought of His world-wide mission.—The handful of Nazarenes becomes representative of the nation, and their rejection of Him the occasion of the blessings passing to the heathen. If Jesus had not long been familiar with this thought, it could not have come to Him now so quickly nor so clearly, nor been announced so decisively and calmly. Obviously He entered on His ministry with the consciousness that His kingdom was as wide as humanity, and His blessings meant for all the lonely and diseased everywhere. Note, too, how His mind is saturated with Scripture: it was His weapon in His desert conflict, and it is His unanswerable demonstration that Israel’s prophets carry blessings to Gentiles. He selects His examples from the hereditary enemies of Israel, and not only hints at the inclusion of the alien, but He plainly tells of the exclusion of the Jew. In this lay the sting of the examples.
IV. The anger of the Nazarenes.—Their interest had quickly cooled. The carping question, and the craving for miracle, had effectually damped the incipient admiration. No doubt the words of prophecy had stirred some hopes of mere political freedom; and if He had preached revolt, He might have beat up a following. But this declaration that the outside heathen were to have a share in the healing, sight, and liberty which He proclaimed extinguished all the dreams of a political Messiah; and that helped to make the Nazarenes the angrier. They “rose up,” interrupting the synagogue service, and, in the whirlwind of their fury, drag Him to some cliff high enough to kill any one thrown over it.
Let us learn how little the mere familiarity with Christ in the flesh availed to open men’s eyes to His beauty, and let us beware lest a similar familiarity with the letter of the record of His life may equally blind us to our need of Him, and His Divine authority over us, and Divine power to help and heal us. Let us take heed that we yield to and follow out the stirrings of conviction in our inmost hearts; and remember, for warning against dealing lightly with these, that the same people who one half-hour bare witness to Jesus, and wondered at His gracious words, were ready to fling Him over the rock the next, and, so far as we know, lost Him for ever when He passed through their midst and went His way. That way led Him unto the wide world. It leads Him to each heart that is sad and sore, and brings Him to our doors with hands pierced and laden with blessings.—Maclaren.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luk_4:14-30
Luk_4:14. “Power of the Spirit.”—Strengthened by His victory over temptation. “And now, the way being clear before Him, with God as His assured ally and Satan as His open foe, Jesus moves forward to the field of battle” (Godet).
“Fame.”—I.e. on account of
(1) His teaching, and
(2) of His miracles (cf. Luk_4:23).
The Return with Power.—The power was the power of the Spirit in which He returned to His own land. Who would not desire to be such a power in the world? Whence comes this ability? Where shall we win the subtle secret of such a power? The best gifts can neither be bought nor commanded. This power is of the very essence of a man’s nature: it must radiate from his spirit.
I. The power which Jesus wielded was drawn forth in the experience of the wilderness.—The wilderness and the temptation preceded the gracious words. No man gets power except in conflict; conflict is the schoolroom where power and courage are learned. This principle is true in the material world and in the world of mind. Pain and isolation discipline the spirit. No man is strong who has not learned to live alone. But—
II. Loneliness is not enough.—It is not because Jesus spent forty days in solitude that He was strong. It was because of the power which He matured in the wilderness—the power of living not by the earthly but by the heavenly law.
III. Our Lord shows that there is a heavenly light in ordinary human life.—Our Lord had gone into the wilderness to bring hope to men. There was no lot in which God was not. “This day,” He cried, “the hindering ills and the oppressive sorrows of life may disappear.”—Carpenter.
Luk_4:15. “Synagogues.”—In spite of the religious degeneracy of the Jewish people of this time, the word of God was still read publicly and endeavours made to elucidate its teaching and apply it to the hearts and lives of those who heard it.
Luk_4:16-30. An Epitome of the History of Jesus.—The whole scene in the synagogue at Nazareth from beginning to end is full of typical significance. Commencing with evangelic discourse, and closing with death-perils, it may be said to be an epitome of the history of Jesus. And for that very reason it is introduced here by the Evangelist at so early a place in his narrative. Luke selects it for the frontispiece of his Gospel, showing by sample the salient features of its contents.—Bruce.
Christ an Example to Teachers—
I. In His spirit of devotedness.
II. In His being filled with the Spirit.
III. In His custom of frequenting the synagogue.
IV. In His knowledge of and aptness to teach the word.
V. In His utterance of words of grace.—Hone.
“Where He had been brought up.”—It was a trying visit, for few tasks are harder than to give God’s message to one’s own relatives and intimate friends, especially when they are in no mood to receive it.—Blaikie.
Luk_4:16. Church Attendance. “As His custom was.”—There are many evidences that Jesus had fixed religious habits. Attending the weekly synagogue worship had been His custom from childhood; and although He was the Son of God, and had been manifested as the Messiah, He still continued to observe the custom. He went there to worship God, not to find an intellectual entertainment. The inconsistencies of His fellow-worshippers did not keep Him from the services. If He needed the means of grace, surely we need them far more.—Miller.
Jesus a Lover of the House of God.—It is strange to think of Jesus being preached to Sabbath after Sabbath during these silent years at Nazareth. What was the man like to whom Jesus listened? When He began His public work, He still regularly frequented the synagogue. This was in fact the centre from which His work developed itself. It is thus evident that Jesus was a passionate lover of the house of God. As the Scripture was read, the great and good of former ages thronged around Him; nay, heaven itself was in that narrow place for Him.—Stalker.
Christ an Example as a Worshipper.—There is a strong argument to be drawn from the example of Christ for attendance upon public worship on the day of rest. If He made a point of being present at the reading and exposition of Scripture, and of joining with others in worship of God, how much more should we attend to this duty. It was “His custom”—not mere obedience to a rule imposed by ecclesiastical authority—but a way of employing the Sabbath which He found to be for edification. The narrative seems to imply that this was the first time He had addressed the people of Nazareth: we are therefore to conceive of this as an occasion of special solemnity in the life of Jesus.
“Stood up.”—Attitude of respect adopted by the Jews in reading the Scriptures: the attitude of sitting while engaged in teaching (Luk_4:20) implies authority (cf. Mat_23:2).
Luk_4:18. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me.”—This, it has been often noticed, contains a statement of the doctrine of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, operating distinctly but harmoniously in effecting man’s salvation.
“He hath anointed Me.”—The meaning of this prophetic citation may be better seen when we remember that it stands in the middle of the third great division of the Book of Isaiah (49–66), that, viz., which comprises the prophecies of the person, office, sufferings, triumph, and Church of the Messiah; and thus by implication announces the fulfilment of all that went before, in Him who then addressed them.—Alford.
“The poor,” etc.—The troubles that afflict humanity and that are to be abolished by Christ are figuratively described as
(1) poverty,
(2) captivity,
(3) blindness, and
(4) oppression.
The Sermon at Nazareth.—The opening of a ministry that has changed the world. A fourfold scheme of Christianity.
I. A social gospel.—“To the poor.”
II. A healing gospel.—“To the brokenhearted.”
III. An emancipating gospel.—“Deliverance.”
IV. An enlightening gospel.—Dawson.
The New Teacher.—Three points make Him pre-eminent and unique.
I. The relation between His person and His word.
II. The consciousness He had of Himself and His truth.
III. His knowledge of Himself and His truth were throughout perfect and self-consistent.—Fairbairn.
The Text of His First Sermon.—There was nothing fortuitous in Christ’s choice of His first text in Nazareth. The occasion was a marked one. None could forget it. He turned in calm self-possession to the first three verses of Isaiah’s sixty-first chapter, describing what should be the work and office of the destined Redeemer and Saviour of man. It scarcely needed that He should say what the application was. The audience felt, as He read, that the text said so.—Vaughan.
“Closed the book.”—When He had read the text from the Old Testament, He closed the book and gave it back to the attendant. As soon as the book had delivered its message, He presented Himself to the congregation as the fulfilment of the prophecy. His sermon consisted in permitting the prophet to pronounce the promise and then exhibiting Himself as its fulfilment. No other preacher, either false or true, ever acted thus.—Arnot.
The Gospel to the Poor.—The evangelisation of the poor was really the divinest thing in Christ’s ministry, the most original phase thereof, and the phenomenon which most convincingly showed that a new thing, destined to make all things new, had appeared in the world—the religion of humanity, the universal religion. Such a religion is surely Divine; but when first it made its appearance, it could not but seem a very strange and startling phenomenon.—Bruce.
Luk_4:18-19. Five Portraits of our Blessed Lord.
I. Christ the Evangelist.
II. Christ the Good Physician.
III. Christ the Liberator.
IV. Christ the Revealer.
V. Christ the Jubilee of His Church.—Vaughan.
Luk_4:19. “Acceptable year.”—The allusion is to the year of jubilee (Leviticus 25). The benefits conferred upon Jewish society by this institution were the following:
1. The Israelite who had sold himself into slavery received his freedom.
2. Families which had alienated their patrimony received it back again.
3. A generous amnesty was granted to those who were in debt. All these are most appropriate figures of the spiritual blessings which Christ was to confer upon men.
“The acceptable year of the Lord.”—Our Lord laid emphasis on this last clause of His text.
I. What was in His mind when He said He was anointed to preach “the acceptable year.”—The year of jubilee. In its remarkable position it was a type of gospel times. The jubilee year of the Lord was introduced by Christ and is in process now.
II. The genuine jubilee year goes beyond the Old Testament picture.—We extend both time and place. Our “year” rolls out into centuries, our “land” into the whole earth. The liberty proclaimed is soul liberty. But a man cannot live on liberty. The slave was to return to land and family. So in the gospel. The home and the birthright are waiting for us.
III. The great delight God has in bestowing liberty.—It is a great joy to Him. Jesus wished His first words to be all mercy. Judgment is in the background. He puts the acceptable year first, and so should it be with us. For those who despise His love and sacrifice there remains only judgment, the day of vengeance.—Gibson.
Vengeance left out.—If Christ left out “vengeance,” well may I. It belongs neither to my province nor to this dispensation. His first advent had nothing to do with “vengeance.” He did not come then to judge the world, but to save the world, and He could not, therefore, have said of this awful word, “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.”—Vaughan.
Luk_4:20. “Eyes of all fastened on Him.”—Many things contributed to arrest their attention:
1. The report of His teaching and mighty works which had preceded Him.
2. The fact that it was the first time He whom they knew so well was to address them.
3. The remarkable character of the words He had read.
4. His manner and bearing, which convinced them that He was about to make some important statement of His claims and purposes.
Luk_4:21. “Fulfilled in your ears.”—The theme of Christ’s discourse was that the preaching which now re-sounded in the synagogue of Nazareth was a fulfilment of the prophecy He had just read.
Luk_4:22. “Wondered at the gracious words.”—This passage and Joh_7:46 give us some idea of the majesty and sweetness which characterised our Lord’s utterances. It is the attractive manner of His speech rather than the substance that is here referred to; perhaps “graceful utterances” would be the best paraphrase of the expression “gracious words” (cf. Psa_45:2). It is a poor result of preaching when the attention of the hearers is principally fastened upon the speaker’s oratorical gifts, and what he has to say is overlooked. Frivolous curiosity gives place to contempt and indignation. The inhabitants of Nazareth could not brook the lofty claims put forth by their fellow-townsman, whom they had known from His infancy.
Gracious Words.—We can well believe that there was a peculiar charm in the Speaker’s manner, but it sprang from His heart being filled with enthusiasm for the mission on which He had been sent. The grace of manner had its source in the grace that lay in the message. He had come to preach the gospel to the poor, and proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. There can be no doubt how the Evangelist regarded the prophet’s words, which Christ made His own, and in what sense He calls them “words of grace.”—Bruce.
Luk_4:23. “Heal Thyself.”—This was a taunt which was used again when He hung upon the cross (Luk_23:35). As great a need existed in Nazareth for the healing labours of the Saviour as in Capernaum, but the unbelief of its inhabitants hindered the exercise of His powers (cf. Mat_13:58; Mar_6:5). He was like a skilful musician or able orator whose powers are chilled and almost nullified by an unsympathetic audience.
Luk_4:24. “No prophet,” etc.—Christ here gives the reason why, in His own town, He fails to make the impression He had made in Capernaum. So far from compelling His fellow-citizens to accept His claims by performing astounding prodigies, He is willing to accept the fate ordinarily encountered by Divine messengers.
Physician and Prophet.—The Saviour at Nazareth reveals at once His double character as
(1) Physician, and
(2) Prophet—as a Physician who is treated with scorn when He wishes to prepare help for others, and is at once bidden to heal Himself; and as a Prophet who deserves the highest honour and does not receive the least.—Lange.
“In his own country.”—Two causes may be assigned for the vulgar prejudice to which Christ here alludes.
1. In the case of one well known the charm of novelty is absent.
2. People are apt to think that circumstances of life so like their own, are wanting in that romance and mystery, which their imaginations lead them to associate with remarkable persons of whom they know but little.
Luk_4:25-27. Elijah and Elisha.—The cases of the mercy shown to the widow of Zarephath and to Naaman find a close parallel with those of the Syro-phœnician woman (Mar_7:26) and the centurion’s servant (chap. Luk_7:1-10). The points of resemblance are
(1) the unbelief with which these prophets and Jesus were confronted at home, and
(2) the faith which they encountered in persons outside the pale of Judaism. The deeds of mercy shown to the destitute and to the leper by these earlier prophets were apt figures of the benefits which Christ was able and desired to confer.
God blesses whom He will.—The general teaching of the incidents quoted from Old Testament history and of Christ’s own course of procedure on this occasion may be stated as follows:
1. That God is free to confer His blessings on whom He will.
2. That it is the fault of men if they do not receive these blessings. Widows and lepers in Israel had not the faith shown by those who actually received benefits from the prophets; the mood of the people of Nazareth was different from that of those who had been healed in Capernaum.
3. That in every nation those who fear God and work righteousness are accepted of Him.
Luk_4:28. “Filled with wrath.”—The angry and murderous feelings manifested by the people of Nazareth justify the severity of tone which Christ had adopted in addressing them, and the ill opinion which seems at that time to have been generally formed of them (cf. Joh_1:46). The same anger was excited whenever the possibility of the Divine mercy being withdrawn from the Jews, because of their unbelief, and manifested to the Gentiles, was hinted at (cf. Act_22:21-22). “The word of God is a sword, is a war, is a poison, is a scandal, is a stumbling-block, is a ruin to those who resist it” (Luther).
Luk_4:29. “Thrust Him out of the city.”—This was the first open insult that was offered to Jesus, and it is sad to think that it proceeded from those who had for nearly thirty years been witnesses of His innocent and holy life. “He came unto His own, and they that were His own received Him not” (Joh_1:11).
Luk_4:30. “Passing through the midst of them.”—There is a tragic irony in the fact that the people of Nazareth desired to see some miracle wrought by Him to accredit His claims to be the Messiah; a miracle was granted to them, but it was in the supernatural way in which He escaped from their hands. In Christ’s escape from this great danger we may see a genuine fulfilment of the promise in Psa_91:11-12, which Satan had urged Him to put to the test in another way: “He shall give His angels charge concerning Thee, to guard Thee, lest haply Thou dash Thy foot against a stone.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv14, 16 Mat 4:12; Mar 1:14; & Luk 4:14. “And after…
JESUS GOES TO GALILEE
Mat 4:12; Mar 1:14; & Luk 4:14. “And after that John was cast into prison, Jesus came unto Galilee.” Having entered upon His official Messiahship by purifying the temple at the Passover, and preached to the multitudes gathered on the Temple Campus during the great national feast; delivered that wonderful discourse to Nicodemus at night, the Apostle John bearing witness; and having wrought many miracles of which we have no specification; after the Passover, going out into the country north of the metropolis, He continues to preach and work miracles, His disciples baptizing the people, John the Baptist preaching in Enon near by, so that intercommunication between the audiences springs up, all observing that while Jesus is rapidly rising and magnetizing the multitudes, John is waning, — a crisis supervenes, resulting from the arrest of John the Baptist by Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, and king of Galilee and Perea. Immediately after this, Jesus leaves Judea, and goes away to Galilee, apparently because of John’s arrest and imprisonment lest a similar fate shall overtake Him, and thus interfere with the work which He came to do. We see many judicious precautions adopted by Him at different times in order to prevent the interruption of His ministry till His work is done,
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CHAPTER 11
JESUS PREACHING IN GALILEE
Joh 4:43-45; Mat 4:17; Mar 1:14-15; & Luk 4:14-15. “And after two days He went out from thence, and departed into Galilee. For Jesus Himself witnessed that a prophet has no honor in his own country.” Now what is the force of this affirmation of Jesus? You must remember that Nazareth, where He was brought up and spent the first thirty years of His life, is in Galilee. So He was denominated a “Galilean.” Having entered upon His ministry in Jerusalem by purifying the temple, and spent the eight days of the Passover preaching to the thronging multitudes, and perhaps a month following in the populous regions of Judea, His fame spreading abroad, and attracting vast multitudes to His ministry; John the Baptist, who had been the sensation about eight months, somewhat waning, while the trend of the multitude is to Jesus. The tendency of His rapidly increasing popularity is to arouse the Jews to crown Him King, which would have interfered with His ministry; whereas it was transcendently important that He should be permitted to finish His work. Consequently He leaves the populous regions of Judea, and goes away into the comparatively thinly populated country of Galilee, where they will not make so much ado over His ministry, nor be so likely to interrupt His work by precipitating His royal coronation. In addition to this fact, His nativity and residence in Galilee had conduced somewhat to render Him common, and would militate against the probability of that great popular excitement which would be likely to result in crowning Him King.
Mark: “He was preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, That the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God draweth nigh; repent and believe in the gospel.” Luke: “The fame went throughout all the surrounding country concerning Him, and He was teaching in their synagogues, being glorified by all.” The seventy weeks of Daniel — i.e., the four hundred and ninety years, according to the year-day system peculiar to prophetical interpretation — had already expired. The scepter had already departed from Judah; besides, there was a general fulfillment of the prophecies pointing to the coming Messiah about that time, John the Baptist, the greatest of the prophets, having not only preached Him, but pointed Him out, introducing Him to the people by baptism; while the Holy Ghost from heaven had descended on Him, and the Divine voice, from God the Father, had rung in the ears of the multitude, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Of course, the kingdom of heaven (Matthew all the time says, “Kingdom of heaven,” and Mark, “Kingdom of God,” they being precisely synonymous) is at hand in very truth, because the King is here, and of course having the kingdom with Him; as a kingdom means a government. Hence, all the true disciples of Jesus come under His government, and become citizens of the kingdom.
While repentance was the constant, burning appeal of John the Baptist, we see that when Jesus comes, preaching the gospel, He not only preaches repentance, thus fully endorsing and corroborating John, but He preaches faith, commanding all to repent and believe the gospel. Repentance breaks the yoke of Satan, an indispensable prerequisite to their reception of Christ, as they could not serve two masters. As Luke says, “Glorified by all.” Hence we see that, as His fame went abroad into all lands, a wonderful tide of popular excitement immediately sprang up in all directions, concentrating on this wonderful Prophet of Galilee.
Joh 4:45. “Then, when He came into Galilee, the Galileans received Him, having seen all things which He did in Jerusalem during the feast; for they also came to the feast.” The Jews, from all parts of the world, were accustomed to gather at Jerusalem at the time of the great national festivals; e.g., the Passover in April, Pentecost fifty days afterward, and the Feast of Tabernacles in September. These Galileans, who had witnessed His miracles during the Passover (of which there is no record, this being the only allusion to them), and heard His preaching, now rally to Him from all parts of the country, stirring all the people, telling them that a wonderful Prophet, like unto Elijah and Elisha, had risen in Israel.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v14 Subdivision 1. (Luk 4:14-44; Luk 5:1-39; Luk 6:1-49.)
Subdivision 1. (Luk 4:14-44; Luk 5:1-39; Luk 6:1-49.)
In sovereign grace, and divine power.
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The sovereignty of grace in salvation is the very first thing presented here. God alone could have thought of it: from His heart alone it could have come. Even so, and with all the suitability there is in it to man’s condition, it is naturally distasteful to him, for he believes in himself, and does not willingly own the truth of his condition. Hence God must act for Himself as is implied in new birth: for who was ever born of his own will? And Scripture directly negatives this as to spiritual birth (Joh 1:13).
But thus salvation being of God is effected from first to last in the power of God. How great a comfort for the soul convicted of its own evil, folly and feebleness? God "worketh in you the willing and the doing of His good pleasure" (Php 2:13, Gk.). The work in us is secured by the same grace that has accomplished the work for us, in the value of which we stand unchangeably. All is provided for equally, the covenant of promise being God’s "I will" throughout.
1. (1) This part begins with a foreshadow at Nazareth of what is soon to be fulfilled in Israel’s history. The Lord is seen in the place where He was brought, up and according to His custom He enters the synagogue on the sabbath day. There He stands up to read, and the book of Isaiah being given Him, He opens at the sixty-first chapter, and applies the words of the Man anointed with the Spirit of Jehovah to Himself. It is clear how accordant with the character of Luke the quotation is. It is the "Mediator between God and man; the Man Christ Jesus" (1Ti 2:5), whose voice is heard here; and it is as come up out of Jordan; where He has pledged Himself to a baptism to death far different, that the Spirit has come upon Him for His work. He declares here in the first words of His ministry, as Luke gives it to us, the purport of that anointing. The preaching of glad tidings to the poor comes first, and gives character to all the rest. When man is in the place of need he can receive the gospel. When he is consciously a sinner, captive to the sin which he cannot, when he will, renounce, the gospel brings him release. The blind receive their sight. Those bruised in fetters liberty.* It is in fact "the acceptable year of the Lord"; the jubilee of God; fuller and more blessed than the law ever proclaimed in Israel.
{*This is not in Isa 61:1-11, as the rest is, but inserted from Isa 58:6. It is there found in very different connection, and here is so similar to what we have had already, that it would arouse suspicion as to its being really part of the text; but the copies are in agreement.}
Now in His Person this had come to them. He was the source of all, the spring of grace and salvation. Where the prophet goes on to "the day of vengeance of our God," the Lord stops short in the middle of the sentence: grace had hastened to anticipate the judgment; although for those who refuse the one there will at last be the other. But judgment lingers with reluctant feet, while those of grace are winged with desire.
(2) They heard and wondered: could not but own that these were gracious words. Would they receive them, then? That is a very different thing. They were not the poor, the captive, blind or fetter-bruised. They were wonderful words indeed of Joseph’s son! How had He learned this wisdom? and how had He the boldness to take such a place as He was taking? After all, the question was of Him and not of them. Who was He? But they had heard of miracles wrought at Capernaum: let the physician heal himself; what they had heard of elsewhere let Him repeat in His own city, to which His wonders naturally belonged, and the fame of the prophet. For it had become a proverb that out of Galilee there arose none; and as to Nazareth it was a question, could any good be expected of it? Well, if He had such power, let Him exercise it there where there was need and the occasion called.
After all, with all the unbelief that might be in it, it seems natural to ask, why the Lord did not take this means of breaking down their unbelief; why, if He were doing miracles elsewhere, why not here?
But He, seeing more deeply, sees He is rejected. Even while they wonder at His gracious words, they have no need of them: and of what use were miracles, save to confirm that of which they had no need?
It was a case, too, coming under a rule which -so alike are men; so inveterate the evil in them -could be deemed invariable. "No prophet is acceptable in his own country." And this seems as if it were a comment upon their question; "Is not this the son of Joseph?" God acting in a son of Joseph! God speaking with so familiar a voice, and disguising Himself so in nature and common life! That seems impossible; self-contradictory even; startling too by bringing God so near; unwelcome, alas, in the same proportion.
But, however men judge of it, God will be as God, acting sovereignly as He pleases, while in goodness, because goodness is His nature, but not tied to show it according to any of the thoughts of men. What had their history shown as to this? In the awful times of Elijah, when for their sins famine swept through the land for three years and six months; -or in times succeeding, when Elisha was in Elijah’s place: -who were they to whom it pleased God to show mercy? There were many widows in Israel, when Elijah was sent to the Sidonian widow! many lepers in Israel unhealed, when Naaman the Syrian was cleansed! Israel might in those days have said to Elijah, "Do these things in thine own country," while yet they had shown no desire after God, but had cast Him off; and now grace rejected might go out to others. There were the poor, the blind, the captives of sin elsewhere, -even among the Gentiles: men who had need of Him, if they had none; and who, finding that need met in Him, would realize in Him more than "the son of Joseph."
But the men of Nazareth are only roused into fury by such words. They seek to kill Him by hurling Him from the brow of the hill on which the city is built; but He passes through the midst of them and goes His way. How plain a foreshadow of the rejection that waited Him at the hands of the people, and of the way in which the death to which they destined Him availed nothing to hinder those purposes for which He stooped even to death also. And so grace went out to the Gentiles.
2. (1) We have had, then, Christ as the Source of blessing, and the character of the blessing which He is come to convey to men. But if blessing be thus prepared for him, the enemy in whose hand he is must be met and despoiled of his prey. This, therefore, is what we find next, the story which we have already had in Mar 1:21-28, of the demoniac in the synagogue at Capernaum. Very significant it is that the demon is not here in the tombs or in the mountains, but parading his victim in the midst of the concourse of men; and even in the synagogue, as if he would make good his title to him in the presence of God Himself. But under the power of the Word, which is the sword of the Spirit to expose and vanquish him, he is made to realize the Holy One of God, and quails as before his destroyer. He is silenced and made to come out, with one last expression of impotent rage, which only manifests the more the power over him; and amazement seizes upon the multitude who behold it, and spread His fame throughout the region round about.
(2) He enters into Simon Peter’s house and the devil’s power meets Him in another form. The mother-in-law of Simon is ill with a great fever. He rebukes it, and it leaves her; and immediately she is restored and able to minister to them.
(3) And now the crowds gather, bringing those sick with all manner of diseases; and the power of God is manifest in healing all without exception. Nothing is too hard for Him. The earth is ready to put on again its paradisaic garb, and the devil to be banished out of it: so at least it well might seem.
There is love also equal to the power displayed. The people, well content to have such an one among them, would fain prevent His leaving them; but it is not enough for Him that seekers should find Him, He must be the Seeker, and seek everywhere the sheep that are astray from their Shepherd. All the cities of Israel must hear the Voice of Him that is come after them. The Kingdom of God must be every where proclaimed. That which men most coveted, the miracles of healing, were but the attendant signs of divine authority once more ready to be openly established over a willing-hearted people. Thus alone could there be healing indeed.
3. Naturally we are led on in this way to the inward deliverance, the spiritual healing by which sanctification to God is attained. This we shall find commonly conveyed to us, as so often in the Gospels, in terms of the outward miracle, the clearest and most concise way, no doubt, in which it could be done in these cases. Figures though they are, the Christian understanding can hardly fail to realize their significance.
(1) The first story here, though from its conclusion surely coincident with the call of the first disciples in the previous Gospels, is yet in the main part peculiar to Luke, as it is surely in fullest harmony with its character. It is the record of a soul brought into the presence of God; at once drawn and searched out by the light of it. There is nothing in the nature of the miracle itself that is in the least calculated to terrify or produce any emotion of fear whatever, but the contrary. They who have toiled all night and caught nothing, find now, upon casting their nets once more at the Lord’s bidding, a multitude of fish which fill their own and their partners, vessels till they are ready to sink with the weight. When Simon sees it he is amazed; and falling down at Jesus, knees, he cries, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man; O Lord."
It is the sense of the divine presence, revealed by the miracle, that has stricken through Simon Peter, and brought him to the consciousness of his condition. He cleaves to Him, even while he says, depart. Conscience and heart are at strife within him. But he does not flee: how should he flee from Him who is what he realizes Him to be -who has searched out the paths of the sea and his heart together? Nor does the Lord leave him in doubt as to the grace that can take up the sinful: "Fear not," He says to Simon; "from henceforth thou shalt catch men." The grace thus shown is not simply the reception of sinners. Christ thus known in the heart associates the redeemed with Himself in His message of mercy to men.
(2) In the two miracles following, the need that is to be ministered to is more fully exposed. The leper and the paralytic show us the corruption and impotence produced by sin; the former being the well-known type of sin in the Old Testament, in its subtle invasion; its certain spread, its contagion; its breaking up of human relations, its banishment from God (Lev 13:1-59.) Man was powerless in the presence of this malignant scourge. The mere touch of one who had it was defilement. Every leper was known; and had to make himself known to all around him, that none might come in contact with him. Moreover the removal of it was one of the signs by which was proclaimed the God-sent deliverer of Israel from the oppression of the Egyptians.
Nowhere then could there be found a more suitable means for the manifestation of His power than in cleansing the leper; and here was one in that awful state of isolation, "a man full of leprosy." This is Luke’s description; going beyond the former Gospels: it was not in mere incipiency, but revealing itself in all its terrible reality. But "when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and besought Him, saying, Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean."
A sorrowful case when one who confesses the power of Jesus to heal him, can doubt His will; and yet, in the case of sin how common! But the Lord would have none question. He does not merely speak, He goes further, and with a touch at once breaks through the barrier of law, and removes that which the law could only brand, not remedy. "I will: be thou cleansed." And immediately the leprosy has departed from him. Now the very priest of the law must pronounce him clean; and Jesus sends the healed man to him for that purpose.
Leprosy speaks of the out-break of the flesh, -the nature of the unrenewed man; but which remains in the renewed man also, and may, alas, break out of him. This last is, in fact, what the type in Leviticus directly speaks of, while leprosy in itself may speak of either. Christ is, in either case, the only and all-sufficient remedy. In Joh 13:1-38 He takes our feet into His blessed hands to cleanse them from all the defilements of the way, and this is the touch of Jesus for the Christian. For the sinner also there is the touch of the Samaritan-Saviour, come where he is; of which Luke will tell us much at another time: a story which unites in some sense the leper with the paralytic in him who fell among the thieves. The aspects vary of that which is fundamentally the same: the meeting of divine power and love with human need and guilt. The experience of how many can interpret and apply a history like this.
(3) We pass on to the paralytic, in whom the impotence produced by sin is clearly shown us. The Lord, therefore, first assures him of forgiveness -"Thy sins are forgiven thee," and makes the power to "rise and walk" the token to others of the reality of what he has received. And this is the spiritual order.
Both this and the previous miracle we have had in the first two Gospels, and in Mark, as here, together. In Matthew they are separated, but with as distinct a purpose as to each. The divine glory of Christ in all this part is fully manifest.
4. We have now what with little variation is common to the three Synoptists, the dispensational change which this open display of divine grace involves. Matthew indeed puts an interval between that which takes place at Levi’s house and the contention as to the Sabbath; while Mark and Luke present them in connection. The call of Matthew (or Levi) seems also historically to have been some time before the feast made by him. Each evangelist uses his material according to his purpose, rather than in mere chronological order. The connection between the Sabbath question and the displacement of the legal ritual which was impending is evident, and so it is that they are brought together here.
(1) The call of Levi to the apostleship must have been startling to a Jew. The tax-gatherer was hated as the symbol of foreign dominion; hated for his often unscrupulous exactions, and hated more than all if (as was here the case) it was a Jew who lent himself to what was considered the oppression of his own people. But "tax-gatherers and sinners," thus associated in the language of the multitude, followed the Baptist, while Pharisees and Sadducees turned away from him; and so was it now in the Lord’s case. Levi follows Him with unhesitating promptitude, leaving all he had. And the feast that he makes Him is furnished with guests which show how fully he has entered into his Master’s mind.
But the scribes and Pharisees as naturally murmur: why eat and drink, they ask, with such as these? The Lord’s answer is as simple as can be, and as sufficient. He is a physician looking for the sick; and not, therefore, as disregarding the need men had of repentance, but to bring them to it. It is the goodness of God known that brings men to it.
(2) Then they raise a question about fasting. John’s disciples fasted; as, with the message that he brought the people, well was there need. The Pharisees too had not been wrong in this, if only they had penetrated the true meaning of the law, which John had but emphasized. The voice in the wilderness had announced however the coming of One who would be the Bridegroom of His people (Joh 3:29): how unsuitable would be the voice of mourning then!
But of this the dead ritualism of the Pharisee knew nothing. Fasting was meritorious in itself according to their thought, and Christ in the truth of what He was had no place in them. Thus Israel’s Bridegroom, already in their midst, would, as rejected, be taken from them; and then indeed would the sons of the bride-chamber fast.*
{*There is no thought of Christianity proper, or the Church, in all this. The Church is the heavenly bride, but of this the Baptist had no knowledge; nor did it form part of the Lord’s teaching in the Gospels, but remained for the Spirit to bring out after His coming (Joh 16:12-13). The Lord’s words and those of the Baptist are in the line of Old Testament thought.}
But there was another thing, for the old covenant points beyond itself, and that which was peculiar to it was therefore destined to pass away and be replaced by the new. So opposite were these that the two could not agree. The garment of human righteousness according to the law, however incompetent it might be, could not be patched with the "righteousness which is of God through faith" (Php 3:9). The old wine-skins of the Jewish institutions could not confine the free expansive spirit of the new covenant which was already showing itself. But the opposition to it showed also that with man naturally the law was more to his taste: he who was still drinking of the old wine would not immediately desire the new.
(3) The two incidents which raise the question of the Sabbath are given in almost precisely the same way in the three Gospels. In Matthew they are in different connections from those in which they are found in Mark and Luke; but in all their purport is the same: Christ the Lord of the Sabbath being rejected, they can claim no Sabbath; just as when; David the anointed king of Israel being a fugitive from the wrath of Saul, the show-bread became common food. Alas, Israel in a little while would keep their Sabbath with the Lord of it, crucified at their hands, lying in His guarded grave!
And at all times had mere ritualism lost the spirit of the law while retaining the form of it. The love to man which the seventh day rest breathed had passed into a rigid exaction which rather slew than saved. In the story of the withered hand this is fully manifest, and in the miracle which is wrought, the Lord brings in the power of God to bear witness against it. But the Pharisees and scribes are only the more roused to madness, and commune one with another what they might do to Jesus.
5. Thus He is more distinctly than before rejected of Israel in the persons of their leaders, and takes His place as such. In answer to their attitude He gathers His disciples round Him, and chooses from them twelve as His "apostles," or "sent ones," to be the witnesses and heralds of the new Kingdom coming in. In their presence and that of a great multitude as well of His disciples as of those from all the country round about attracted by His power and grace, He declares the blessedness, responsibilities, and recompense of those that cleave to Him, the heirs of the Kingdom. They are in a scene characterized by His rejection, and sufferers for His sake, only thus the more blessed, not the less. The end would declare it.
What we have here is, no doubt, "the sermon on the mount," but with abridgment as well as additions, according to Luke’s purpose. The remnant character of those that are with Him is very strongly emphasized.
(1) Christ is here the source of authority and the centre of power. As He had already told the people of Nazareth, grace will not be stopped in its outflow by the opposition of men. "The Man Christ Jesus," Himself the expression of eternal counsels, in the sweet dependence of perfect humanity, and the perfect intimacy of the Son with the Father, goes up to God upon the mountain; and continues there all night in prayer to God. It is the anticipation of the place He has now taken, and all that follows is the fruit of that intercession. But thus the wisdom of God which is in it appears in the form of human weakness. He names the twelve, and among them is a traitor. The rest are fishermen and what not; not a sign among them of what naturally we should take for power; and the three most prominent, frequently made so, as it would seem, by their lack of apprehension of His mind and fellowship with Him. We see plainly that without Him they can do nothing. He is all of wisdom to them, all of power. They, like the crowd that swarm to Him from the regions round, are joined to Him by their absolute need of Him, their entire dependence on Him. A Judas even must serve Him. How we see the Christianity that is to spring out of this! The whole of Christianity is Christ: "Christ is all and in all" (Col 3:11).
(2) We see this strikingly in what follows here, in which His disciples are separated from all the world about them by this fact, that they are His. The world is in opposition to Him and to His. It hates them, separates them from it, casts out their name as evil for the Son of man’s sake. Thus for them it has nothing. They are the "poor," the hungry, the weepers, the afflicted in it. Yet well may they rejoice: for their reward is great in heaven; on earth they but continue the line of the prophets rejected by the world from of old.
On the other hand, and for the same reason, those who are satisfied with it, and the world with them, have their part in the woes that are coming on the world. And He cannot leave this to inference, for He is the Saviour of sinners and His heart goes after them: in its very denunciations grace overflows. But this changes nothing as to the final end: rather does it assure us how fixed and unalterable that end must be.
(3) But the Lord goes on to speak of what the conduct of His disciples is to be in the midst of a world in opposition to them. To those whose ears are open to His words He says, "Love your enemies; do good to those that hate you; bless those that curse you; pray for those that despitefully use you." This rule of returning good for evil is that which He has so bountifully illustrated in His own person; and of which the Cross is the supreme example. The precept of non-resistance which follows it we have already remarked upon in going through Matthew. The bountiful spirit which becomes those who owe their all to the free gift of God is enforced in the words, "Give to every one that asketh thee," -words which surely require the wisdom inspired by divine love to guide in their application. This part closes with the general principle that "as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise."
(4) The way of the world is put in contrast with this, the world being quite capable of returning love for love, of doing good to those who do good to them, of lending with the hope of getting back as much. But to love and do good and lend without hope of return: this would be conduct suited to the sons of the Most High; because He is kind to the unthankful and the evil.
(5) Thus we are to be imitators of God as dear children; and under a Father’s holy government also, according to which the measure meted will be measured out; and this as what both suits the nature of God, and the truest interests of His people also. It is evident, therefore, that rewards are not intended to be denied, nor yet disregarded: for that which God gives it cannot but be of God that it should have place in our thoughts and in our hearts. Seeing what we are, this needs and receives careful guarding. We find it so again and again: -guarded, but maintained in this very way (Mat 19:27-30, Mat 20:20-28, notes). He gains who for Christ’s sake loses; but not for gain’s sake.
(6) The "blind" are primarily, no doubt, the Jewish leaders; but the follower will not escape the ditch by being simply a follower: for the truth speaks for itself to him who has ears to hear. He who gives himself up to another’s leadership absolutely, has his conscience not before God, but before man; and even the Lord bases His title to be heard upon the truth of what He spoke: "If I say the truth, why do ye not believe Me?" (Joh 8:46.) That to which a man yields himself necessarily moulds him. If then he surrenders himself to the teacher of error, he will not be above his teacher, but, if he is perfect, be only like him.
On the other hand, if evil be detected in another’s eye -in his way of regarding things (and here the teacher of error seems still primarily pointed at) -one must take care that there be no lack of self-judgment as to one’s own. Evil must first be judged within before it can be judged outside; and this will give tenderness and compassion; as well as clear sightedness. Judging without self-judgment is but hypocrisy.
And this self-judgment is always of the "beam" as compared with the "mote" in others. For what can we know of others compared with what we may and should know of ourselves? And then the evil fruit we find is but the sign of an evil tree: thorns grow no figs, nor brambles grapes. Thus true self-judgment sets aside self altogether. We do not judge to establish our own righteousness, nor as rejoicing in the evil, but as rejoicing with the good: we learn to "take forth the precious from the vile," because the good is "precious."
(7) Useless indeed is the profession of the lips, -the saying, "Lord, Lord," except the life confirm it. Not that the best life will justify before God, or save in the day when all that can be will be shaken. But it is evidence, nevertheless, that Christ is the foundation of the soul, -of a house built secure against all the storms that can assail it. Faith in Christ must, of course, be real; but the more real the faith in other things, the more complete is the delusion, the surer and more fatal the ruin that awaits one. "The ruin of that house is great."
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v21
Luke
PREACHING AT NAZARETH
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Luk 4:21.
This first appearance of our Lord, in His public work at Nazareth, the home of His childhood, was preceded, as we learn from John’s Gospel, by a somewhat extended ministry in Jerusalem. In the course of it, He cast the money-changers out of the Temple, did many miracles, had His conversation with Nicodemus, and on His return towards Galilee met the woman of Samaria at the well. The report of these things, no doubt, had preceded Him, and kindled the Nazarenes’ curiosity to see their old companion who had suddenly shot up into a person of importance, and had even made a sensation in the metropolis. A great man’s neighbours are keen critics of, and slow believers in, his greatness. So it was natural and very prudent that Jesus should not begin His ministry in Nazareth.
We can easily imagine the scene that morning in the little village, nestling among the hills. How many memories would occupy Christ as He entered the synagogue, where He had so often sat a silent worshipper! How Mary’s eyes would fill with tears if she was there, and how the companions of His boyhood, who used to play with Him, would watch Him; all curious, some sympathetic, some jealous, some contemptuous!
The synagogue service began with prayer and praise. Then followed two readings, one from the Law, one from the Prophets. When the latter point was reached, in accordance with usage, Jesus rose, thereby signifying His desire to be reader of the Prophetic portion. We can understand how there would be a movement of quickened attention as the roll was handed to Him and He turned its sheets. He ‘found the place’; that looks as if He sought for it; that is to say, that it was not the appointed lesson for the day-if there was such-but that it was a passage selected by Himself.
I need not enter upon the divergences between Luke’s quotation as given in our English version and the Hebrew. They are partly due to the fact that he is quoting from memory the Greek version of the LXX. He inserts, for instance, one clause which is not found in that place in Isaiah, but in another part of the same prophet. Having read standing, as was the usage, in token of reverence for the Scripture, Jesus resumed His seat, not as having finished, but, as was the usage, taking the attitude of the teacher, which signified authority. And then, His very first sentence was the most unlimited assertion that the great words which He had been reading had reached their full accomplishment in Himself. They are very familiar to our ears. If we would understand their startling audacity we must listen to them with the ears of the Nazarenes, who had known Him ever since He was a child. ‘This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.’ Now, it seems to me that this first sermon of our Lord’s to His old fellow-townsmen brings into striking prominence some characteristics of His whole teaching, to which I desire briefly to direct attention.
I. I note Christ’s self-assertion.
To begin in Nazareth with such words as these in my text was startling enough, but it is in full accord with the whole tone of our Lord’s teaching. If you will carefully search for the most essential characteristics and outstanding differentia of the words of Jesus Christ, even if you make all allowance that some make for the non-historical character of the Gospels, you have this left as the residuum, that the impression which He made upon the men that were nearest to Him, and that caught up most fully the spirit of His teaching, was that the great thing that differentiated it from all other was His unhesitating persistence in pushing into the very forefront, His testimony about Himself. I do not think that there is anything parallel to that anywhere else amongst the men whom the world recognises as being great religious geniuses or great moral teachers. What characterises as perfectly unique our Lord’s teaching is not only the blessed things that He said about God or the deep truths that He said about men and their duty, or the sad things that He said about men and their destiny, or the radiant hopes that He unveiled as to men and their possibility, but what He said about Himself. His message was not so much ‘Believe in God and do right,’ as it was ‘Believe in Me and follow Me.’
I need only point you to the Sermon on the Mount, which is popularly supposed to contain very little of Christ’s reference to Himself, and to remind you how there, in that authoritative proclamation of the laws of the new kingdom, He calmly puts His own utterances as co-ordinate with-nay! as superior to-the utterances of the ancient law, and sweeps aside Moses-though recognising Moses’ divine mission-with an ‘I say unto you.’ I need only remind you, further, how, at the end of that ‘compendium of reasonable morality,’ He lays down this principle-that these sayings of ‘Mine’ are a rock-foundation, on which whoever builds shall never be put to confusion. This is but a specimen of the golden thread, if I may call it so, of self-assertion which runs through the whole of our Lord’s teaching.
Now, I venture to say that this undeniable characteristic is only warranted on the supposition that He is the Son of God, and His work the salvation of the world. If He is so, if ‘He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,’ if the revelation of Himself which He makes is the Revelation of God, if His death is for the life of the world; and if, when we honour Him, we honour God; when we trust Him, we trust God; when we obey Him we obey God; then I can understand His persistent self-assertion. But otherwise does He not deliberately intercept emotions which are only rightly directed to God? Does He not claim prerogatives, such as forgiveness of sins, bestowal of life, answering of prayer, which are only possessed by the Divine Being?
I know that many who will not go with me in my intellectual formularising of the truth about Christ’s nature do bow to Him with unfeigned reverence. But it seems to me, I humbly confess, that there is no logical basis for such reverence except the full-toned recognition that the mystery of His self-assertion is explained by the mystery of His nature, God manifest in the flesh. I, for my part, do not see how the moral perfectness of Jesus Christ is to be saved, in view of that unmistakable strand in His teaching, unless by such admission. Rather, I feel that the recognition of it brings us face to face with the tremendous alternative, and that the people who were moved to indignation by His self-assertion because they recognised not His divine origin, and said ‘This man blasphemeth’; ‘This deceiver said,’ have more to say in defence of their conclusion than those who bow before Him with reverence, and declare Him to be the pattern of all human perfectness, and yet falter when they are asked to join in the great confession, ‘Thou are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’
II. Secondly, note here our Lord’s sad conception of humanity.
There are, as it were, two strands running through the prophetic passage which He quotes, one in reference to Himself, one in reference to those whom He came to help. To the latter I now turn, to get our Lord’s point of view when He looked upon the facts of human life.
No man will ever do much for the world whose ears have not been opened to hear its sad music. An inadequate conception of its miseries is sure to lead to inadequate prescriptions for their remedy. We must bear upon our own hearts the burdens that we seek to lift off our brothers’ shoulders. There is nothing about the Master’s words concerning mankind more pathetic and more plain than the sad, stern, and yet pitying view which He always took concerning them and their condition.
In the passage on which Jesus based His claims, as given by Luke, one of the clauses is probably not in this place genuine, for ‘the healing of the brokenhearted’ should be struck out of the true text. There are then four symbols employed: the poor, the captives, the blind, the bruised. And these four are representations of the result of one fell cause, and that is-sin.
Sin impoverishes. Our true wealth is God. No man that possesses Him, by love, and trust, and conformity of will and effort to His discerned will, is poor, whatever else he has, whatever else he lacks. And no man who has lost this one durable treasure, the loving communion with, and possession of, God, in mind and heart and will and effort, but is a pauper whatever else he possesses. Wherever a man has sold himself to his own will, and has made himself and his own inclinations and misread good his centre and his aim, which is the definition of sin, there bankruptcy and poverty have come. Thieves sometimes beset travellers from the gold mines, as they are bringing down their dust or their nuggets to market, and empty the pockets of the gold, and fill them up with sand. That is what sin does for us; it takes away our true treasure, and befools us by giving us what seems to be solid till we come to open the bag; and then there is no power in it to buy anything for us. ‘Why will ye spend your labour for that which satisfieth not?’ The one poverty is the impoverishment that lays hold of every soul that wrenches itself, in self-will, apart from God. Sin makes poor.
Sin not only impoverishes, but imprisons ‘the captives.’ Ah! you have only to think of your own experience to find out what that means. Is there nothing in the set of your affections, in the mastery that your passion has over you, in the habits of your lives, which you know as well as God knows it, to be wrong and ruinous, and of which you have tried to get rid? I know the answer, and every one of us, if we will look into our own hearts, knows it: we are ‘tied and bound by the chains of our sin.’ You do not need to go to inebriate homes, where there are people that would cut their right hands off if they could get rid of the craving, and cannot, to find instances of this bondage. We have only to be honest with ourselves, and to try to pull the boat against the stream instead of letting it drift with it, to know the force with which the current runs. A tiny thread like a spider’s draws after it a bit of cotton a little thicker, and knotted to that there is a piece of pack-thread, and after that a two-stranded cord, and then a cable that might hold an ironclad at anchor. That is a parable of how we draw to ourselves, by imperceptible degrees, an ever-thickening set of manacles that bind our wills and make us the servants of sin. ‘His slaves ye are whom ye obey.’ Sin imprisons. That is, your sin-do not let us befool ourselves with abstractions-your sin imprisons you.
Sin blinds. Wherever there comes over a soul the mist of self-will and self-regard, sight fails; and all the greatest things are blurred and blotted. The man that is immersed in his own evil is like one plunged in the ocean. The cold, salt waters are about him, and above him; and to him the glories of the sky, and the brightness of the sun, the tenderness of the colouring, are all blotted out. He who goes through life as some of us do, never seeing God, never seeing the loftiest beauty of goodness, never beholding with any clearness of vision the radiant possibilities of the future and its awful threatenings, may indeed see the things an inch from the point of his nose; but he is blind and cannot see afar off, and can only behold, and that darkly, the insignificances that are around him. Sin blinds.
And sin bruises. It takes all the health out of us, and makes us, from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, masses of ‘wounds and bruises and putrifying sores.’
The enchantress having worked all this havoc, then gives us a cup of illusion which, when we drink, we know not that there is anything the matter with us. We are like a lunatic in a cell, who thinks himself a prince in a palace, and though living on porridge and milk, fancies that he is partaking of all the dainties of a luxurious table. The deceitfulness of sin is not the least of its tragical consequences.
III. Lastly, we have here our Lord’s conception of Himself and of His own work.
Your time will not allow of my dwelling upon this as I would fain have done, but let me point out one or two of the salient features of this initial programme of His. He claims to be the theme and the fulfilment of prophecy. Now, whatever influences modern notions about the genesis of the Old Testament, and the characteristics of its prophetic utterances may have done, they have not touched, and they never will touch, this one central characteristic of all that old system, that embedded in it there was an onward-looking gaze, anticipatory of a higher fulfilment and a further development of all that it taught. To those of us to whom Christ’s words are the end of all strife I need only point out that, here, He endorses the belief that prophetic utterances, however they may have had, and did have, a lower and immediate meaning, were only realised in the whole sweep and significance in Himself. So He presents Himself before His acquaintances in the little synagogue at Nazareth, and before the whole world to all time, as the centre-point and pivot on which the history of the world, so to speak, revolves; all that was before converging to Him, all that was after flowing down from Him. ‘They that went before, and they that followed after, cried, Hosanna! blessed be He that cometh in the name of the Lord.’
He claims to possess the whole fullness of the divine Spirit: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me.’ That is a reminiscence, no doubt, of the experience by the fords of the Jordan, at the Baptism. But it also opens up a wondrous consciousness, on His part, of a complete and uninterrupted possession of the divine life in all its fullness, which involves an entire separation from the miseries and needs of men. He claims to be the Messiah of the Old Covenant, with all the fullness of meaning, and loftiness of dignity which clustered round that word and that thought. He claims not only to proclaim, but to bestow, the blessings of which He speaks. For He not only comes to ‘preach good tidings to the poor,’ but ‘to heal the broken-hearted,’ and ‘to set at liberty all them that are bound.’ He is the Gospel which He utters. He not merely proclaims the favour of heaven, but He brings ‘the acceptable year of the Lord.’
This, in barest outline-which is all that your time will admit-is the summary of what Jesus Christ, in that first sermon in the synagogue at Nazareth, asserted Himself to be.
He does not detail the means by which He is about to bring the golden year, the year of Jubilee, ‘the acceptable year of the Lord.’ But I venture to say that it is hard to find, in the life of Jesus Christ, that which fulfils Christ’s own programme, as thus announced, unless you bring in His death on the Cross for the abolition of sin, His Resurrection for the abolition of death; His reign in glory for the bestowment on all sinful and bruised souls of the Spirit of healing and of righteousness.
These Nazarenes listened. Their hearts and consciences attested the magnetic power of His personality, and the truth of His word. So do the hearts and consciences of most of us. They wondered at the ‘words of grace’-whose matter was grace, whose manner was gracious-that proceeded from His mouth. So do most of us. But they let the incipient movement of their hearts be arrested by the cold, carping question, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ and all the enthusiasm chilled into indifference; ‘indignation’ followed, and some of those who had almost been drawn to Him, in an hour’s time had their hands on His robe, to cast Him from the brow of the hill on which their village was built. Every man who comes to the point of feeling some emotions towards Christ as his Redeemer, as his King, is at a fork of the road. He may either take to the right, which will lead him to full communion and acceptance; or he may go to the left, which will carry him away out into the desert. The critical hour in the alchemist’s laboratory was when the lead in his crucible began to melt. If a cold current got at it, it resumed its dead solidity, and no gold could be made.
Brother! do not let the world’s cold currents get at your heart and freeze it again, if you feel that in any measure it is beginning to melt into penitence, and to flow with faith. The same voice that in the synagogue of Nazareth said, ‘He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor’ speaks to us to-day from heaven, saying, ‘I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich . . . and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve that thou mayest see.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv14, 16 J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XXVI. C. Arrival…
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XXVI. C. Arrival in Galilee].
XXVI. JESUS SETS OUT FROM JUDÆA FOR GALILEE. Subdivision C. ARRIVAL IN GALILEE. cLUKE IV. 14; dJOHN IV. 43-45.
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d43 And after the two days [the two days spent among the Samaritans at Sychar] he went forth from thence [from Samaria] into Galilee. c14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee [Power of the Spirit here means its manifest use to perform miracles, rather than its presence, influence or direction. Jesus was always under the influence and direction of the Spirit, but did not previously perform miracles]: d44 For Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath no honor in his own country. [Galilee was Jesus' "own country" ( Joh_1:46, Joh_2:1, Joh_7:3, Joh_7:41, Joh_7:52, Luk_23:5-7). In Judæa he had begun to receive so much honor as to bring him into danger at the hands of the Pharisees: he would receive less in Galilee. Joh_4:43 resumes the itinerary of Joh_4:1, Joh_4:2, after the interlude which tells of the woman at Sychar.] 45 So when he came into Galilee, the Galilæans received him, having seen all the things that he did in Jerusalem at the feast: for they also went unto the feast. [The works which Jesus had done in Jerusalem were for the most part fruitless as to its inhabitants, but they bore the fruit of faith in far-off Galilee. Of "the many who believed on him" in Jerusalem ( Joh_2:23), it is highly probable that a large number were Galilæan pilgrims who were then there attending the passover.] [154]
[FFG 154]
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XXVII. Account of Jesus' Teaching].
XXVII. GENERAL ACCOUNT OF JESUS' TEACHING. aMATT. IV. 17; bMARK I. 14, 15; cLUKE IV. 14, 15.
a17 From that time Jesus began to preach [The time here indicated is that of John the Baptist's imprisonment and Jesus' return to Galilee. This time marked a new period in the public ministry of Jesus. Hitherto he had taught, but he now began to preach. When the voice of his messenger, John, was silenced, the King became his own herald. Paul quoted the Greeks as saying that preaching was "foolishness," but following the example here set by Christ, he used it as the appointed means for saving souls. While Matthew gives us many of the earlier incidents of Christ's life, he enters upon the account of his ministry at the time when Jesus returned to Galilee. From that time forward he was probably an eye-witness of the events which he records], bpreaching the gospel of God, 15 And saying, aand to say, Repent ye; for bthe time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God aof Heaven bis at hand. [Jesus preached the gospel or good news of his own advent and of the setting up of the unending kingdom which should convert the world to righteousness and save the souls of men. We should note that Jesus himself declares that the prophesied time for the setting up of his kingdom was at hand. There were many general prophecies as to this kingdom, but one which especially fixed the time of its coming; viz.: Dan_9:24-27. This prophecy tells of seventy weeks in which each day is reckoned as a year, so that the seventy weeks equal four hundred and ninety years. They are to be counted from the date of the decree which ordered the rebuilding of Jerusalem. The Messiah, or Prince, was to come at the beginning of the seventieth week, or four hundred and eighty-three years from the date of the decree. Some take the decree referred to as to be that mentioned in Neh_2:7, Neh_2:8. Jahn and Hales fix the date [155] of this decree in the year 444 B. C. According to this, Jesus would have begun his ministry in the year A. D. 39. Others take the decree to be mentioned in Ezr_7:12-26., which was thirteen years earlier, and which would bring the beginning of the ministry of Jesus to the year A. D. 26. But there is much uncertainty about all ancient chronology. Suffice it to say that Daniel told in round numbers how long it would be until Messiah should come, and that Jesus said that this time had been fulfilled. It would have been easy to ascertain the correct chronology at the time when Jesus spoke, and we have no record that any presumed to dispute his statement. Jesus announced the coming of a new dispensation. The King had already come, but the kingdom in its organization and administration was as yet only "at hand." Until the crucifixion of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost the kingdom could not be fully organized, for the blood shed upon the cross furnished the means for purification which precedes a proper entrance into the kingdom, and the coming of the Holy Spirit afforded that indwelling strength by which those entering are enabled to abide therein]: repent ye, and believe in the gospel. [That is, prepare for the kingdom by repenting of sin, and by believing the glad news that the kingdom was approaching, for the King had come ( Joh_1:49). The preaching of Jesus at this time did not differ materially from that of John the Baptist, for John preached repentance and the approaching kingdom ( Mat_3:2), and the gospel ( Luk_3:18), and belief in the King ( Joh_1:29, Joh_1:36, Joh_3:36). The fact that repentance comes before belief in this passage is by some taken as an indication that repentance precedes faith in the process of conversion, but it should be remembered that the preaching here is addressed to the Jewish people, who already believed in God, and in the Scripture as the revelation of God. They were, therefore, required to bring forth fruit worthy of the old faith and the old revelation as preparatory to their reception of the new faith and the new revelation. Thus repentance and faith appears to be the established order for Hebrews ( Heb_6:1), and their [156] proselytes ( Act_20:21), because of the spiritual standpoint or condition in which the gospel found them. But those who have no faith in God can surely have no repentance toward him, for belief precedes every call upon God, whether for mercy, pardon, or any other blessing-- Rom_10:13, Rom_10:14], cand a fame went out concerning him through all the region round about. [The miracles of Jesus and the manner in which he taught caused the people to glorify his name.] 15 And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. [If we may trust later tradition (and the New Testament corroborates it), synagogues were very plentiful in that day, there being at least one in each town. In the synagogue the people met on Sabbath and feast days. The temple at Jerusalem was used for ceremonial worship, but the services in the synagogue were of far different order, the study and application of the Scripture being the principal feature.]
[FFG 155-157]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv16, 18, 19 came to Nazareth
came to Nazareth
Our Lord visited Nazareth twice after beginning His public ministry. See Mat 13:54-58; Mar 6:1-6.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v14 III. The Ministry in Galilee -- Chapter 4:14-9:50
III. The Ministry in Galilee -- Chapter 4:14-9:50
CHAPTER 4:14-44
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1. In the Synagogue of Nazareth (Luk 4:14-21)
2. Unbelief and Rejection of Christ. (Luk 4:22-32)
3. A Demon Cast Out in Capernaum (Luk 4:33-37)
4. Peter’s Wife’s Mother Healed; Many Healed. (Luk 4:38-44.)
Luk 4:14-21
And now the description of the ministry of the Son of Man begins. The beginning is in His own city. How all written here is again in a very human manner. He had been brought up in that city and as His custom was “He went into the synagogue,” and as He had done, no doubt, before, He stood up to read and like a man finds the place in the scroll which the servant had handed Him. Isa 61:1-2 is read by Him and then applied to Himself. The Spirit of the Lord was indeed upon Him to preach the Gospel to the poor. But He stopped in the middle of a sentence. The acceptable year of the Lord, is the last word He read. In His Person all this had appeared. He came to preach the Gospel, to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind and to set at liberty them that are bruised. He did not read “the day of vengeance of our God.” That too is His work, but not as long as the acceptable year of the Lord lasts.
Luk 4:22-32
“Is not this Joseph’s son?” It is the first hint of the coming rejection. Then when He declared that God’s grace is not to be confined to Israel, but that it will, as in days of old, in the case of the widow of Sarepta and Naaman, go out to the Gentiles, they were filled with wrath. They were ready to kill Him. What happened? “But He, passing through the midst of them, went His way.” Was it a miracle? Is it the same as when He passed through shut doors? It was the result of His own dignity as the perfect Man, which awed the crowds, so that no one dared to touch Him.
Luk 4:33-37
The same incident is reported in Mar 1:21-28. The demons knew him but He had come to spoil the enemy and here He manifested His power.
Luk 4:38-44
Many works of power followed. As the seeker of the lost to preach the good tidings, He went from city to city.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv14, 16, 20, 23 The Beginning of Christ’s Ministry and His Teaching in…
The Beginning of Christ’s Ministry and His Teaching in Nazareth. Luk 4:14-32
The return to Galilee:
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v. 14. And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee; and there went out a fame of Him through all the region round about.
v. 15. And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.
The evangelist has here omitted a part of the gospel-story, probably that related Joh 2:1-25. For he writes that Jesus turned back into Galilee, where He had been before. In the power of the Spirit, who was with Him and took an active part in His ministry, He made this journey which meant the public beginning of the work in which He spent the last years of His life. He had been known before in the section of Galilee near Cana, where He had performed His first miracle, and therefore at this time the news concerning Him went out and spread throughout the neighborhood. It preceded Him wherever He went, it made the people eager to see and hear Him. And He took up His work of bringing the Gospel to His countrymen; He taught in their synagogues, He tried to impart the great lessons of the coming of the kingdom of God. And He was highly praised by all, for all felt the power of His preaching, of whom at least some acknowledged the divinity of His mission.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv14, 16, 18, 20, 23 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Jesus returns to Galilee, teaches in the synagogue, and tells the people there that he is fulfilling scripture of Isaiah the prophet.
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Then Jesus returned
This begins a new event in the story. (See: Introduction of a New Event)
in the power of the Spirit
"and the Spirit was giving him power." God was with Jesus in a special way, enabling him to do things that humans usually could not.
news about him spread
"people spread the news about Jesus" or "people told other people about Jesus" or "knowledge about him was passed on from person to person." Those who heard Jesus told other people about him, and then those other people told even more people about him.
throughout the entire surrounding region
This refers to the areas or places around Galilee.
he was praised by all
"everyone said great things about him" or "all the people spoke about him in a good way"
translationWords
Galilee
power
Holy Spirit
teach
synagogue
praise
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv13, 14, 16, 18, 21, 23 4:13 The next opportunity might have been Judas’s betrayal…
4:13 The next opportunity might have been Judas’s betrayal (22:3-6, 21-22, 47-48); the supreme test came at Gethsemane (22:39-46).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.